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THE  LIBRARY 

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THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

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THE   MEANING   OF   EDUCATION 

AND  OTHER 

ESSAYS  AND  ADDRESSES 


£&v& 


THE 


MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

AND  OTHER 

ESSAYS  AND  ADDRESSES 


BY 


NICHOLAS  MURRAY  BUTLER 

PROFESSOR    OF  PHILOSOPHY  AND  EDUCATION 
IN  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON :  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 

1905 

All  rightt  reserved 


COPYBIGHT,   1898, 

By  THE  HACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped  March,  1898.      Reprinted  October, 
1898;  April,  1900  ;  March,  1901:  April,  August,  1903;  April, 
1904;  August,  1905. 


Norixjooo  $«8S 

J.  S.  Cushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith 

Norwood  Mau.  U.S.A. 


Education 
Library 

LB 

CONTENTS 

PAOX 

The  Meaning  of  Education       ....  3 

What  Knowledge  is  of  Most  Worth?    .        .  37 

Is  there  a  New  Education?       ....  69 

Democracy  and  Education         ....  99 

The   American   College   and   the   American 

University 125 

The  Function  of  the  Secondary  School        .    151 

The  Reform  of  Secondary  Education  in  the 

United  States 187 


INTRODUCTION 

The  essays  and  addresses  brought  together 
in  this  volume  give  expression  to  convictions 
and  opinions  on  the  subject  of  education  that 
have  been  presented  during  the  past  fifteen 
years,  in  one  form  or  another,  to  hundreds  of 
audiences,  mainly  of  teachers,  in  almost  every 
state  of  the  Union.  The  belief  that  controls 
them  all  is  threefold :  first,  that  education, 
in  the  broad  sense  in  which  I  use  the  term,  is 
the  most  important  of  human  interests,  since 
it  deals  with  the  preservation  of  the  culture 
and  efficiency  that  we  have  inherited  and  with 
their  extension  and  development ;  second,  that 
this  human  interest  can  and  should  be  studied 
in  a  scientific  spirit  and  by  a  scientific  method ; 
and,  third,  that  in  a  democracy  at  least  an  edu- 
cation is  a  failure  that  does  not  relate  itself 
to  the  duties  and  opportunities  of  citizenship. 


Viii  INTRODUCTION 

Education  is  sharply  distinguished,  there- 
fore, from  the  far  narrower  field  of  instruc- 
tion, as  that  in  turn  is  broader  than  the  field 
of  school-life.  To  give  to  education  its  right- 
ful place  in  our  thinking  involves  relating  it 
to  the  laws  of  life  in  general,  and  especially 
to  those  laws  as  viewed  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  doctrine  of  evolution.  This  I  have 
aimed  to  do  by  proposing  an  extension  of  the 
commonly  received  doctrine  of  infancy,  which 
though  as  old  as  early  Greek  philosophy,1  owes 
its  definite  statement  and  exemplification  to 
Mr.  John  Fiske.  In  this  way  the  theory  of 
education  is  given  what  it  has  hitherto  lacked, 
a  distinct  relationship  to  the  facts  of  organic 
and  social  evolution. 

A  standard  must  next  be  sought  by  which 
the  value  of  educational  processes  and  influ- 
ences may  be  judged.  I  find  this  standard  in 
the  conclusion,  common,  I  am  confident,  to  the 
best   philosophy  and   to  the   soundest  science 

1  Butler,  "Anaximander  on  the  prolongation  of  infancy 
in  man,"  in  Classical  Studies  in  Honor  of  Henry  Drisler 
(New  York:  The  Macmillan  Co.  for  the  Columbia  Uni- 
versity Press,  1894). 


INTRODUCTION  iX 

alike,  that  the  facts  of  nature  must  be  ex- 
plained, in  the  last  resort,  in  terms  of  energy, 
and  that  energy  in  turn  can  be  conceived  only 
in  terms  of  will,  which  is  the  fundamental 
form  of  the  life  of  mind  or  spirit. 

I  offer  these  two  conclusions  as  the  basis 
for  an  educational  philosophy.  With  them  in 
mind  I  have  discussed  a  number  of  concrete 
problems  that  are  of  present  importance  not 
to  teachers  alone,  but  to  thoughtful  parents 
and  to  conscientious  citizens. 

It  is  sometimes  hastily  objected  that  the 
attempt  to  formulate  a  scientific  study  of  ed- 
ucation is  impossible.  This  objection  rests 
upon  a  misunderstanding  as  to  what  a  science 
is.  Science  is  wholly  a  matter  of  method ; 
it  is  knowledge  classified,  and  nothing  more. 
The  knowledge  so  classified  may  be  know- 
ledge of  plants,  or  of  heavenly  bodies,  or  of 
the  human  body,  or  of  forms  of  government, 
or  of  education.  Only  the  sciences  based  upon 
mathematics  are  exact  or  lay  claim  to  exact- 
ness ;  all  others  are  descriptive  only,  and  wider 
experience  or  further  observation  may  modify 
their  conclusions  at  any  time.      A  science  of 


X  INTRODUCTION 

education  is  analogous  to  a  science  of  medicine. 
Both  are  built  upon  a  group  of  ancillary  sci- 
ences, and  both  arrive  at  conclusions  that  are 
only  working  hypotheses.  "With  normal  chil- 
dren, as  with  normal  patients,  these  hypotheses, 
based  as  they  are  upon  wide  experience,  require 
little  or  no  modification ;  in  abnormal  cases, 
however,  they  must  be  modified  or  sometimes 
even  abandoned.  Neither  medicine  nor  edu- 
cation makes  any  pretense  to  exactness. 

It  is  highly  important  for  the  study  of 
education  that  a  consistent  nomenclature  be 
adopted  and  used,  though  for  a  variety  of  rea- 
sons this  is  a  difficult  task  to  accomplish. 
Bearing  in  mind  this  need,  I  have  endeavored 
to  mark  off  the  several  types  or  grades  of 
educational  institutions  from  each  other,  and 
to  give  to  each  its  appropriate  name.  Many 
American  educational  problems  that  appear 
very  complex,  would  become  much  simpler  if 
the  various  institutions  giving  systematic  in- 
struction were  always  called  each  by  its  right 
name. 

To  the  teachers  of  the  United  States,  espe- 
cially to  those  who  are  members  of  the  Na- 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

tional  Educational  Association,  I  am  under 
the  deepest  obligations  for  the  encouragement 
and  sympathy  that  have  led  to  the  publica- 
tion of  these  essays  and  addresses.  To  the 
patient  criticism  and  the  kindly  suggestion  of 
my  friends  and  colleagues,  Brander  Matthews 
and  George  Rice  Carpenter,  I  owe  many  im- 
provements in  the  form  in  which  the  papers 

now  appear. 

NICHOLAS  MURRAY  BUTLER 

Columbia  University,  New  York 
March,  1898. 


THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 


An  Address 

delivered  before  the  Liberal  Club  of  Buffalo,  New  York 

November  19,  1896 


THE   MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

Those  who  have  an  acquaintance,  however 
cursory,  with  the  history  of  human  thought 
well  remember  how  bitter  and  how  persistent 
have  been  the  controversies  of  philosophers  and 
metaphysicians  in  respect  to  terms  of  everyday 
use.  Discussions  on  such  familiar  words  as 
"substance,"  "cause,"  "idea,"  and  "matter" 
have  shaken  the  schools  for  ages.  It  seems 
to  be  a  fact  that  when  a  term  is  somewhat 
unusual  and  remote  from  our  experience  and 
our  interest,  we  are  apt  readily  to  be  able  to 
assign  to  it  a  definite  significance  and  a  con- 
crete meaning ;  but  when  it  is  a  term  with 
which  we  are  familiar  in  our  everyday  experi- 
ence and  conversation,  we  often  feel  its  sig- 
nificance and  its  import,  and  yet  find  great 
difficulty  in  defining  it  accurately  in  logical 
or  in  scientific  terms. 

3 


4  THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

I  shall  discuss  the  meaning  of  Infancy  and 
Education  just  because  the  terms  are  familiar, 
because  the  ideas  are  commonplace,  and  be- 
cause, as  it  seems  to  me,  we  so  often  fail  to 
grasp  their  profound  and  far-reaching  signifi- 
cance. The  point  of  view  from  which  I  shall 
speak  of  them  is  the  one  given  us  by  that 
remarkable  generalization  which  has  come  to 
be  known  as  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  a  the- 
ory which  we  all  associate  with  the  nineteenth 
century,  but  which,  nevertheless,  was  seen  by 
the  thinkers  of  the  ancient  world,  by  the  light- 
ning flashes  of  their  genius,  in  what  is  after  all 
very  much  the  form  in  which  the  clear  sun- 
light of  modern  scientific  demonstration  pre- 
sents it  to  us.  The  doctrine  of  evolution  has 
illuminated  every  problem  of  human  thought 
and  human  action.  It  is  a  mere  truism  to 
say  that  it  has  revolutionized  our  thinking ; 
but  it  is  equally  true  that  we  have  in  very 
many  cases  failed  to  accept  the  consequences 
of  the  revolution  and  to  understand  them  in 
all  their  important  applications.  It  seems  to 
me  that  in  no  department  of  our  interest  and 
activity  is  this  failure  more  complete,  speak- 


THE   MEANING  OF   EDUCATION  5 

ing  generally,  than  in  that  which   relates  to 
the  great  human  institution  of  education. 

The  two  chief  contributions  that  light  up  this 
doctrine  from  the  point  of  view  that  I  wish  to 
occupy  are  those  that  were  made  by  Mr.  Al- 
fred Russell  Wallace  and  by  Mr.  John  Fiske. 
It  was  Mr.  Wallace  who  pointed  out,  forty 
odd  years  ago,  that  the  theory  of  evolution  as 
applied  to  man  could  sustain  itself  only  if  it 
were  acknowledged  and  admitted  that  there 
came  a  time  in  the  history  of  animal  types  and 
forms  when  natural  selection  seized  upon  psy- 
chical or  mental  peculiarities  and  advantages 
and  perpetuated  them  rather  than  merely  phys- 
ical peculiarities  and  advantages.  That  is  the 
first,  and  in  a  sense,  perhaps,  the  greater  of 
these  contributions,  for  it  has  enabled  us  to  un- 
derstand the  place  of  man  in  the  order  of  the 
cosmos.  Then,  in  less  than  a  generation,  the  re- 
markable insight  of  Mr.  John  Fiske  explained 
for  us  on  physiological  and  psychological 
grounds  the  part  played  by  the  lengthening 
period  of  infancy  in  the  animal  species.  It  is 
from  that  doctrine  of  Mr.  Fiske  that  I  take  my 
point  of  departure  in  the  present  argument. 


6  THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

We  have  come  to  understand  that  evolu- 
tion regards  us  all  as  individual  centres  of 
activity,  influenced  by  our  surroundings  and 
reacting  upon  them.  We  have  come  to  un- 
derstand that  our  physical,  our  mental,  and 
our  moral  life  is  the  gradual  growth  or  de- 
velopment of  what  may  be  conceived  of  as  a 
point  travelling  through  an  ever-widening 
series  of  circles,  until,  in  this  ripe  and  culti- 
vated age,  the  point  has  come  to  include 
within  the  circumference  that  it  traces,  all 
that  we  call  the  knowledge  or  acquirement 
or  culture  of  the  educated  man. 

The  doctrine  of  infancy,  as  it  has  been  ex- 
plained to  us,  relates  itself  directly  to  that 
figure  and  to  that  method  of  explanation.  If 
we  contrast  or  compare  the  lower  orders  of 
animal  life  with  the  higher,  and  particularly 
with  the  human  species,  we  are  at  once  struck 
by  the  fact  that  in  the  lower  orders  of  exist- 
ence there  is  no  such  thing  as  infancy.  We 
observe  that  the  young  are  brought  into  the 
world  able  to  take  care  of  themselves,  to 
react  upon  their  environment  at  the  mere 
contact  of  air  or  food,  to  breathe,  to  digest, 


THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION  7 

and  to  live  an  individual  existence.  We  are 
further  struck  by  the  fact,  on  examining  the 
structure  of  animals  of  that  kind,  that  there 
is  no  nervous  system  or  organization  present, 
except  such  as  is  necessary  to  carry  on  what 
are  called  reflex  actions.  There  is  no  central 
storage  warehouse ;  there  is  nothing  corre- 
sponding to  the  human  brain ;  and  there  is 
no  action  possible  for  animals  of  that  type 
in  which  any  considerable  time  can  elapse 
between  the  impulse  which  comes  in  from 
the  world  without,  and  the  responding  or 
reacting  movement  or  action  on  the  part  of 
the  animal  itself.  Each  of  those  animals 
lives  the  life  of  its  parents.  Each  of  those 
animals,  young  and  old  alike,  performs  cer- 
tain reflex  actions  with  accuracy,  with  sure- 
ness,  with  despatch ;  no  one  of  those  animals 
progresses,  and  none  develops  or  has  a  his- 
tory. When  we  pass  to  animals  of  a  higher 
order,  however,  there  comes  a  time  when  our 
attention  is  attracted  by  those  that  act  in  an 
entirely  different  way.  Their  actions  are  more 
complex,  more  numerous,  more  subtile,  more 
sustained ;    and  on  turning   again  to  the  or- 


8  THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

ganism  that  accompanies  this  and  makes  it 
possible,  we  see  at  once  that  there  is  an  in- 
creased complexity  of  structure  which  accom- 
panies this  increasing  complexity  of  function. 
We  find,  as  we  study  more  highly  organized 
types  of  animal  existence,  that,  sooner  or 
later,  there  comes  a  time  when  the  offspring 
of  a  given  animal  comes  into  the  world  un- 
able to  perform  many  of  the  functions  that 
become  possible  for  it  later.  It  brings  with 
it  a  host  of  developed  reflex  actions,  but  it 
also  brings  with  it  many  undeveloped  poten- 
tialities. Its  organization  is  not  complete 
at  the  moment  of  birth ;  and  a  period  of  help- 
lessness or  infancy,  longer  or  shorter,  must 
result.  In  passing  from  the  highest  of  the 
lower  animals  to  man,  we  reach  a  most  im- 
portant stage  in  the  development  of  infancy. 
In  man  we  find  the  increasing  bulk,  and  more 
than  that,  the  increasing  complexity,  of  the 
brain  and  central  nervous  system  which  ac- 
company the  complex  adjustments  and  actions 
that  make  up  life.  But  though  the  human 
animal  is  born  into  the  world  complete  as 
to   certain   series   of   reflex   actions,  its   lungs 


THE   MEANING  OF  EDUCATION  9 

able  to  breathe,  its  heart  to  beat,  its  blood 
vessels  to  contract,  its  glands  to  secrete,  an 
immense  series  of  adjustments  remains  to  be 
made.  While  those  adjustments  are  being 
made,  there  is  a  more  or  less  prolonged  period 
of  helplessness  or  infancy. 

The  meaning  of  that  period  of  helplessness 
or  infancy  lies,  as  I  see  it,  at  the  bottom  of 
any  scientific  and  philosophical  understanding 
of  the  part  played  by  education  in  human 
life.  Infancy  is  a  period  of  plasticity  ;  it  is  a 
period  of  adjustment ;  it  is  a  period  of  fitting 
the  organism  to  its  environment :  first,  physi- 
cal adjustment,  and  then  adjustment  on  a  far 
larger  and  broader  scale.  This  fitting  of  the  i 
organism  to  its  environment  on  the  larger  and 
broader  scale  is  the  field  of  education.  In 
other  words,  nature  and  heredity  have  so  or- 
ganized one  side  of  animal  life  that  it  is  com- 
plete at  the  time  of  birth.  A  large  series  of 
adjustments  to  the  world  around  us,  the  series 
of  adjustments  that  in  the  case  of  man  make 
up  the  life  that  is  really  worth  living,  consti- 
tutes the  life  of  the  mind  or  spirit.  At  birth, 
those  adjustments  are  not  yet  made  and  they 


10      THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

have  to  be  slowly  and  carefully  acquired.  We 
are  even  born  into  the  world  with  our  senses, 
"the  windows  of  the  soul,"  locked,  uncoordi- 
nated, unadjusted,  unable  to  perform  what  is 
eventually  to  be  their  function.  It  is  a  famil- 
iar fact  that  sight,  hearing,  and  touch  all  have 
to  be  developed  and  trained  and  coeducated, 
taught  to  act  together,  before  the  infant  can 
appreciate  and  understand  the  world  of  three 
dimensions  in  which  adults  live,  and  which  they 
have  supposed  to  be  the  only  world  known  to 
the  human  consciousness.  While  that  period 
of  plasticity  or  adjustment  lasts,  there  is  natu- 
rally and  necessarily  a  vast  influence  exerted, 
not  only  on  the  child  but  by  the  child. 

I  think  Mr.  Fiske  is  undeniably  correct  in 
saying  that  the  prolonged  period  of  infancy 
which  is  necessary  to  bring  about  these  ad- 
justments, lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  human 
family,  and  therefore  at  the  foundation  of 
society  and  of  institutional  life.  The  factor 
in  history  that  has  changed  the  human  being 
from  a  gregarious  animal  to  a  man  living  in 
a  monogamic  family  is,  if  anthropology  and 
psychology  teach  us  anything,  unquestionably 


THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION  11 

the  child.  During  this  long  period  of  helpless- 
ness and  dependence,  the  parents  of  the  child 
are  kept  together  by  a  common  centre  of  inter- 
est; and  the  bonds  of  affection  and  interdepend- 
ence that  are  eventually  to  constitute  the  family 
are  then  permanently  and  closely  knit.  That 
period  of  mutual  association  and  dependence  of 
the  parents  extends  at  first  over  only  eight, 
ten,  or  twelve  years.  If  two,  three,  or  four 
children  are  born  to  the  same  parents,  it  may 
extend  over  a  period  much  longer  ;  it  may  last 
during  one-third  or  even  one -half  of  the  aver- 
age life  of  man.  Out  of  that  centre  of  depend- 
ence and  helplessness,  the  family,  as  we  know  it, 
has  grown ;  and  it  has  been  constituted,  so  far 
as  we  can  explain  it  at  all,  by  the  lengthening 
period  of  infancy  in  the  animal  kingdom  and 
in  the  human  race.  I  might  cite  fact  after 
fact  in  illustration  of  this,  from  the  history  of 
science  and  from  natural  history,  were  it  not 
wholly  unnecessary.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
profound  generalizations  of  our  modern  science; 
and  it  has  enabled  us  to  see  to  the  very  bottom 
of  the  meaning  of  education  and  to  under- 
stand the  biological  significance  of  one  of  the 


12  THE  MEANING  OF   EDUCATION 

most  striking  and  imposing  of  social  phe- 
nomena. 
II  This  lengthening  period  of  infancy  is  a 
period  of  plasticity.  No  animal  that  has  not 
a  period  of  infancy  needs  to  be  educated. 
Every  animal  that  has  a  period  of  infancy  can 
and  must  be  educated.  The  longer  the  period 
of  infancy  the  more  education  is  possible  for 
it ;  and  as  our  civilization  has  become  more 
complex,  as  its  products  have  become  more 
numerous,  richer,  deeper,  and  more  far-reach- 
ing, the  longer  we  have  extended  that  period 
of  tutelage,  until  now,  while  the  physiological 

(period  of  adolescence  is  reached  in  perhaps  four- 
teen or  fifteen  years,  the  educational  period  of 
dependence  is  almost  twice  as  long.  That  is 
to  say,  the  length  of  time  that  it  takes  for  the 
human  child  in  this  generation  so  to  adapt 
himself  to  his  surroundings  as  to  be  able  to 
succeed  in  them,  to  conquer  them,  and  to  make 
them  his  own,  is  almost,  if  not  quite  thirty  years. 
The  education  in  the  kindergarten,  the  elemen- 
tary school,  the  secondary  school,  the  college, 
the  professional  school,  the  period  of  appren- 
ticeship in  the  profession   before   independent 


THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION      13 

practice  can  be  entered  upon,  is  in  not  a  few 
cases,  now  twenty-five,  twenty-six,  twenty- 
eight,  or  even  thirty  years. 

The  rich  suggestion  that  this  doctrine  of  Mr. 
Fiske  and  this  conception  of  modern  science 
have  for  us,  seems  to  me  to  be  this:  —  The 
entire  educational  period  after  the  physical 
adjustment  has  been  made,  after  the  child  can 
walk  alone,  can  feed  itself,  can  use  its  hands, 
and  has  therefore  acquired  physical  and  bodily 
independence,  is  aji  adjustment  to  what  may 
be  called  our  spiritual  environment.  After 
the  physical  adjustment  is  reasonably  complete, 
there  remains  yet  to  be  accomplished  the  build- 
ing of  harmonious  and  reciprocal  relations  with 
those  great  acquisitions  of  the  race  that  con- 
stitute civilization ;  and  therefore  the  lengthen- 
ing period  of  infancy  simply  means  that  we  are 
spending  nearly  half  of  the  life  of  each  genera- 1 
tion  in  order  to  develop  in  the  young  some  con- 
ception of  the  vast  acquirements  of  the  historic 
past  and  some  mastery  of  the  conditions  of  the' 
immediate  present. 

In   other   words,  the   doctrine    of   evolution 
teaches  us  to  look  upon  the  world  around  us 


14      THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

—  our  art,  our  science,  our  literature,  our  insti- 
tutions, and  our  religious  life  —  as  an  integral 
part,  indeed  as  the  essential  part,  of  our  en- 
vironment ;  and  it  teaches  us  to  look  upon 
education  as  the  plastic  period  of  adapting 
and  adjusting  our  self -active  organism  to  this 
vast  series  of  hereditary  acquisitions.  So  that 
while  the  child's  first  right  and  first  duty  is 
to  adjust  himself  physiologically  to  his  envi- 
ronment, to  iearn  to  walk,  to  use  his  hands 
and  to  feed  himself,  to  be  physically  inde- 
pendent, there  still  remains  the  great  outer 
circle  of  education  or  culture,  without  contact 
with  which  no  human  being  is  really  either 
man  or  woman.  The  child  receives  first,  and 
in  a  short  series  of  years,  his  animal  inheri- 
tance ;  it  then  remains  for  us  in  the  period 
of  education  to  see  to  it  that  he  comes  into 
his  human  inheritance.  When  we  compare 
the  life  of  the  lower  animal,  acting  solely  and 
entirely  by  reflex  action  and  instinct,  with  the 
periods  of  infancy  and  of  self-determined  ac- 
tivity of  the  human  being,  developing  by 
reflex  action,  instinct,  and  intelligence,  we  get 
some  conception   of  the   vast  difference  there 


THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION      15 

is  between  what  Descartes  called  the  animal 
mechanism  and  what  we  may  truly  look  upon 
as  the  activity  of  the  human  mind. 

This  period  of  adjustment  constitutes,  then, 
the  period  of  education  ;  and  this  period  of 
adjustment  must,  as  it  seems  to  me,  give  us 
the  basis  for  all  educational  theory  and  all', 
educational  practice.  It  must  be  the  point 
of  departure  in  that  theory  and  that  practice, 
and  it  must  at  the  same  time  provide  us  with 
our  ideals.  When  we  hear  it  sometimes  said, 
"All  education  must  start  from  the  child," 
we  must  add,  "Yes,  and  lead  into  human 
civilization " ;  and  when  we  hear  it  said,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  all  education  must  start 
from  the  traditional  past,  we  must  add,  "  Yes, 
and  be  adapted  to  the  child."  We  shall  then 
understand  how  the  great  educational  temple 
of  modern  times  into  which  every  civilized 
nation  is  pouring  out  its  strength  and  its 
treasure,  rests  upon  the  two  corner-stones 
of  the  physical  and  psychical  nature  of  the 
child  and  the  traditional  and  hereditary  civili- 
zation of  the  race  ;  and  how  it  is  that  the 
problem  of  the  family,  of   the  school,  and   of 


16  THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

the  home,  is  to  unite  those  two  elements  so 
that  each  shall  possess  the  other.  We  shall 
then  have  a  conception  of  education  which 
is  in  accord  with  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
and  which  is  in  accord  with  the  teachings  of 
modern  science  and  of  modern  philosophy. 

After  the  child  comes  into  the  enjoyment 
of  his  physical  inheritance,  he  must  be  led  by 
the  family,  the  school,  and  the  state  into  his 
intellectual  or  spiritual  inheritance.  The  mo- 
ment that  fact  is  stated  in  those  terms  it 
becomes  absolutely  impossible  for  us  ever 
again  to  identify  education  with  mere  instruc- 
tion. It  becomes  absolutely  impossible  for  us 
any  longer  to  identify  education  with  mere 
acquisition  of  learning ;  and  we  begin  to 
look  upon  it  as  really  the  vestibule  of  the 
highest  and  the  richest  type  of  living.  It 
was  the  great  thought  of  Plato,  that  inspired 
every  word  he  ever  wrote  and  that  consti- 
tutes an  important  portion  of  his  legacy  to 
uture  ages,  that  life  and  philosophy  are 
dentical;  but  he  used  the  word  philosophy 
in  a  sense  which  was  familiar  to  him  and  to 
his  time,  and  for  which  we  might  very  well 


THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION  17 

substitute,  under  some  of  its  phases  at  least, 
the  word  education.  Life  and  education  are 
identical,  because  the  period  to  which  we  tra- 
ditionally confine  the  latter  term  is  merely  the 
period  of  more  formal,  definite,  determinate 
adjustment ;  yet,  just  so  long  as  life  lasts  and 
our  impressionability  and  plasticity  remain,  we 
are  always  adapting  ourselves  to  this  environ- 
ment, gaining  power,  like  Antseus  of  old,  each 
time  we  touch  the  Mother  Earth  from  which 
civilization  springs. 

If  education  cannot  be  identified  with  mere 
instruction,  what  is  it  ?     What  does  the  term 
mean?      I   answer,   it   must    mean   a   gradual 
adjustment  to  the  spiritual  possessions  of  the 
race.      Those    possessions   may    be    variously 
classified,  but  they  certainly  are  at  least  five-i 
fold.      The  child  is   entitled   to   his   scientific ,<o 
inheritance,  to  his  literary   inheritance,  to  nisi© 
aesthetic    inheritance,   to    his   institutional   in-® 
heritance,    and    to    his    religious    inheritance.  ~ 
Without  them  he  cannot  become  a  truly  edu-, 
cated  or  a  cultivated  man. 

He  is  entitled  to  his  scientific  inheritance. 
In  other  words,  he  is  entitled  to  go  out  into 


18      THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

nature,  to  love  it,  to  come  to  know  it,  to  under- 
stand it ;  and  he  is  entitled  to  go  out  into  it, 
not  only  as  the  early  Greek  and  Oriental 
thinkers  went,  with  fear  and  trembling  and 
worship,  but  he  is  entitled  to  go  out  into  it 
armed  with  all  the  resources  of  modern  scien- 
tific method  and  all  the  facts  acquired  by 
modern  research.  He  is  entitled  to  know  how 
it  was  that  we  have  passed  from  the  world 
known  to  the  heroes  of  the  Iliad  to  the  world 
as  we  know  it  to-day.  He  is  entitled  to  know 
how  the  heavens  have  declared  their  glory  to 
man,  and  how  the  worlds  of  plant  and  animal 
and  rock  have  all  come  to  unfold  the  story  of 
the  past  and  to  enrich  us  with  the  thought  and 
the  suggestion  of  the  intelligence,  the  design, 
the  order  that  they  manifest.  There  can  be  no 
sound  and  liberal  education  that  is  not  based  in 
part  upon  the  scientific  inheritance  of  the  race. 
The  learning  of  the  multiplication  table,  the 
learning  of  the  necessary  preliminary  defini- 
tions, the  learning  of  the  necessary  methods  of 
research  and  practice — all  these  are  the  lower 
steps  of  the  ladder,  the  needful  steps  by 
which  we  must  mount ;  and  yet  they  are  the 


THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION  19 

steps  from  which  how  often  we  fall  back  with- 
out having  gained  any  vision  whatever  of  the 
land  to  which  they  are  supposed  to  lead  !  The 
scientific  inheritance  is  one  of  the  very  first 
elements  of  a  modern  liberal  education,  because 
it  is  that  element  which  presents  itself  earliest 
to  the  senses  of  the  child.  It  is  the  element 
with  which  he  comes  in  immediate  sense-con- 
tact ;  to  which  he  can  be  first  led  ;  from  which 
he  may  be  made  to  understand  and  draw 
lessons  of  the  deepest  significance  for  his  life 
and  for  that  adaptation  which  is  his  edu- 
cation. 

Next  there  is  the  vast  literary  inheritance, 
the  phase  of  the  past  that  mankind  has  during 
twenty-fire  hundred  years  most  loved  to  dwell 
upon.  It  is  the  side  that  has  captivated  the 
imagination,  enshrined  itself  in  language,  and 
brought  itself  closest  to  the  heart  of  cultivated 
man,  —  going  back  to  the  earliest  attempts  at 
mythology  and  coming  down  to  the  great 
poetry  and  the  great  prose  of  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  centuries  in  modern  tongues. 
We  have  gone  so  far  as  to  call  this  aspect  of 
civilization  the  "humanities,"  because  most  of 


20  THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

all  it  seems  to  bear  upon  its  surface  the  sig- 
nificance of  that  fine  old  word  humanitas  which 
was  once  the  ideal  of  liberal  education.  "  Hu- 
manities" these  studies  undoubtedly  are,  but 
humanitas  is  a  broader  term  still,  and  in  its 
full  significance  must  be  made  to  include  all 
our  inheritance,  scientific,  aesthetic,  institu- 
tional, and  religious,  as  well  as  literary.  Just 
as  scientific  method  is  the  gate  to  the  scientific 
inheritance  and  therefore  must  in  essence  at 
least  be  mastered,  so  language  is  the  gate  to 
the  literary  inheritance  and  must  be  mastered 
at  the  earliest  opportunity.  We  are  accus- 
tomed, as  a  rule,  to  estimate  and  weigh  power 
and  culture  in  terms  of  language.  The  mas- 
tery of  various  languages,  the  mastery  even 
of  the  mother  tongue,  is  often  taken  as  the 
sole  test  of  culture.  That  is  our  tribute  to 
its  great  importance.  We  see  how  easily  the 
mastery  of  a  language,  or  of  more  than  one, 
lends  itself  to  this  conception  of  education 
as  an  adaptation,  as  an  adjustment,  to  the 
spiritual  environment  of  the  race. 

Language  is  the  crystallized  thought  of  the 
past.     It  contains  in  itself,  in  its  products  and 


THE   MEANING   OF   EDUCATION  21 

its  forms,  in  its  delicate  discriminations,  its 
powers  of  comparison  and  abstraction,  a  record 
of  the  progress  of  the  thought  of  the  race. 
When  we  are  plodding  through  dreary  de- 
tails of  grammar  and  of  rhetoric  we  are  again 
on  the  lower  rungs  of  the  ladder,  the  multi- 
plication table  of  the  literary  inheritance, 
the  steps  that  must  be  taken  if  we  are  to 
come  to  understand  what  the  great  world- 
poets  and  seers  have  revealed  to  us.  There- 
fore it  is  that  we  are  to-day  putting  the 
literary  inheritance  side  by  side  with  the  sci- 
entific in  the  very  earliest  years  of  the  educa- 
tion of  the  child.  In  the  education  that  is 
sometimes  called  "  new,"  it  will  be  found 
that  the  early  linguistic  exercises  are  almost 
always  based  upon  something  that  is  really 
worth  knowing  for  its  own  sake.  Our  litera- 
tures the  world  over,  ancient  and  modern,  are 
so  rich,  so  full  of  thought  and  feeling  and 
action,  that  there  is  no  time  to  waste  in  the 
merely  formal  exercises  of  grammatical  drill 
upon  lifeless  material,  when  we  may  be  occupy- 
ing ourselves,  in  those  same  exercises  and  for 
the  same  purpose  of  discipline,  with  material 


22  THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

(that  enriches  the  human  mind  and  touches  and 
refines  the  human  heart.  Modern  education  in 
its  adjustments  is  bringing  the  child  into  his 
literary  inheritance  in  a  new  spirit.  That 
inheritance  has  always  been  before  mankind. 
In  the  Middle  Ages,  in  early  modern  educa- 
tion, in  European  education  to-day,  the  study 
of  language  and  literature  is  and  has  been  the 
main  element  in  instruction.  It  must  always 
hold  a  prominent  place  in  education,  for  it  ad- 
mits of  no  substitute.  Yet  it  is  mere  narrow- 
ness to  say  that  this  study  alone  is  sufficient, 
and  that  it  excludes  everything  else.  It  should 
come  side  by  side  with  the  scientific  inheritance 
in  the  early  life  of  the  child,  during  the  period 
of  plasticity  or  education. 

The  third  element  in  education  is  the  aes- 
thetic inheritance,  that  feeling  for  the  beautiful, 
the  picturesque,  and  the  sublime  that  has  al- 
ways been  so  great  a  part  of  human  life, 
that  contributes  so  much  to  human  pleasure 
I  and  accentuates  so  much  of  human  pain  and 
suffering.  The  ancient  Greeks  understood  and 
used  it,  but  a  false  and  narrowing  philosophy 
thrust  it  out  of    life    and    education  for  cen- 


/ 


THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION  23 

turies  because  it  was  supposed  to  antagonize 
the  spiritual  or  religious  life.  It  was  believed 
that  the  spirit  could  be  chastened  only  by- 
privation  and  by  pain,  by  tearing  it  away  from 
one  whole  side  of  human  civilization,  and  by 
insisting  that  the  human  heart  should  suppress 
its  feeling,  its  longing  for  the  ideal  in  the  realm 
of  feeling  and  of  beauty.  The  closet  philoso- 
phers could  accomplish  their  end  in  education 
for  a  time,  but  they  were  utterly  unable  to  sup- 
press the  builders  of  the  Gothic  cathedrals 
or  the  Italian  painters  of  the  Renaissance,  and 
they  have  been  unable  to  suppress  the  artistic 
element  in  human  life.  To-day  we  find  it 
coming  back  to  occupy  its  appropriate  place. 
We  should  no  longer  think  of  applying  the 
word  cultivated  to  a  man  or  woman  who 
had  no  aesthetic  sense,  no  feeling  for  the  beauti- 
ful, no  appreciation  of  the  sublime,  because  we 
should  be  justified  in  saying,  on  all  psychologi- 
cal grounds,  that  that  nature  was  deficient  and 
defective.  This  great  aspect  of  civilization, 
this  great  tide  of  feeling  that  ebbs  and  flows 
in  every  human  breast,  which  makes  even  the 
dull   and   inappreciative    peasant   uncover    his 


24  THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

head  as  he  passes  through  the  wonderful  gal- 
leries  of  the  Vatican  or  the  Louvre  —  this, 
too,  is  a  necessary  factor  in  adjusting  our- 
selves to  the  full  richness  of  human  conquest 
and  human  acquisition.  Unless  we  are  to  be 
mere  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water, 
we  should  see  to  it  that  the  aesthetic  inheri- 
tance is  placed  side  by  side  with  the  scientific 
and  the  literary  in  the  education  of  the  human 
child.  To-day  we  find  art  creeping  into  the 
schoolroom;  instruction  in  color,  in  form,  in 
expression  is  being  given.  The  growing  child 
is  surrounded  with  representations  of  the 
classic  in  art,  and  so,  unconsciously  and  by 
imitation,  he  is  being  taught  to  adapt  and 
adjust  himself  to  this  once  forgotten  and  now 
recovered  element  in  human  civilization;  an 
element  that  certainly  is,  like  the  scientific  and 
literary  elements,  an  integral  part  of  the  child's 
inheritance. 

Then  there  is  also  the  wonderful  institu- 
tional inheritance,  most  wonderful  of  all,  be- 
cause it  brings  us  into  immediate  contact  with 
the  human  race  itself.  This  is  the  element  of 
civilization  before  which  we  must,  for  the  mo- 


THE   MEANING  OF  EDUCATION  25 

ment,  sink  differences  of  scientific  opinion, 
differences  of  literary  appreciation,  differences 
of  aesthetic  judgment,  and  in  which  we  look 
upon  individual  man  as  but  a  member  of  a 
larger  whole,  in  order  to  understand  what 
human  civilization  really  means.  We  have 
always  had  before  us,  in  the  history  of  civiliza- 
tion, two  extreme  types  of  thought  and  opinion 
as  to  human  institutions.  We  have  had  the 
view  typified  in  modern  philosophy  by  Rous- 
seau, and  wrought  out  in  the  streets  of  Paris 
from  1789  to  1794.  This  is,  substantially,  the 
view  that  every  individual  is  sufficient  unto 
himself.  It  is  the  view  of  the  ancient  Sophists, 
once  combated  by  Socrates  in  the  streets  of 
Athens,  that  there  are  as  many  truths  as  there 
are  men  to  perceive  truth,  and  that  each  indi- 
vidual is  the  sole  arbiter  of  his  own  fortunes. 
This  is  what  I  may  call  the  atomic  view 
of  human  society,  which  would  blow  all  of  our 
institutional  life  into  millions  of  atoms  and 
deify  each.  That  view  has  failed  to  work 
itself  out  successfully  in  history  ;  when  it  has 
had  a  momentary  victory  it  has  simply  been 
because    it    came    as    a   reaction   against   the 


26      THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

tyranny  of  the  opposite  extreme.  We  have 
had  the  other  extreme  also.  We  have  had  the 
view  which  insists  that  no  individual  is  of  any 
consequence  or  importance  in  the  presence  of 
the  mass ;  the  view  that  all  individual  peculi- 
arity, all  individual  power  or  acquisition,  must 
be  pressed  down  and  trampled  under  foot  for 
the  advantage  of  the  whole.  We  have  seen  it 
in  the  civilization  of  China  in  the  interest  of 
ancestor  worship  ;  we  have  seen  it  in  the  civili- 
zation of  India  in  the  interest  of  the  caste  sys- 
tem ;  we  have  seen  it  in  the  civilization  of 
Egypt  in  the  interest  of  the  priestly  class ;  and 
we  have  seen  those  three  civilizations  wither 
and  die. 

We  have  come  to  understand,  again  follow- 
ing the  seed-thought  of  the  Greeks,  that  the 
true  line  of  institutional  progress  lies  between 
the  two  extremes ;  that  that  conception  of  our 
institutional  life  is  the  true  one  which  regards 
each  of  us  as  a  unit  but  still  as  a  part  of  a 
larger  unit,  which  regards  each  of  us  as  en- 
titled to  liberty  but  in  subordination  to  law. 
We  have  come  to  regard  this  as  the  last  les- 
son   of    a    political   philosophy  that   is   based 


THE   MEANING  OF  EDUCATION  27 

upon  a  study  of  human  history  and  of  human 
nature.  The  conception  of  liberty  under  the 
law,  allowing  a  field  for  every  human  activity 
to  develop  and  enrich  itself  without  pulling 
down  its  fellow,  all  cooperating  toward  a  com- 
mon end,  typifies  and  explains,  better  than  any 
extreme  theory  of  philosopher  or  sciolist,  the 
institutional  life  of  the  race.  We  look  back 
and  see  how  that  institutional  life  has  been 
developed.  We  see  the  right  of  private  prop- 
erty, the  common  law,  the  state,  the  church, 
the  freedom  of  the  press,  education, — one  great 
institution  after  another  emerging  from  the 
mist  of  indefiniteness  and  taking  its  part  in 
the  structure  of  our  modern  life;  and  we  say 
at  once  that  no  liberal  education  can  be  com- 
plete that  does  not  include  some  comprehension 
of  all  that.  Unless  the  child  understands  that 
though  he  is  an  individual  he  is  also  a  member 
of  the  body  politic,  of  an  institutional  life  in 
which  he  must  give  and  take,  defer  and  obey, 
adjust  and  correlate,  and  that  without  all  this 
there  can  be  no  civilization  and  no  progress, 
we  are  thrown  back  into  the  condition  either 
of  anarchy  —  the  anarchy  of  Rousseau  —  or  the 


28  THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

collectivism  and  stagnation  of  China,  India,  and 
Egypt.  We  have  wrested  that  institutional  life 
from  history  and  it  is  going  to-day  into  the 
education  of  children  all  over  the  civilized 
world.  In  this  way  they  are  being  given  their 
institutional  inheritance  ;  they  are  being  given 
some  insight  not  alone  into  their  rights,  which 
are  so  easy  to  teach,  but  into  their  duties,  which 
are  so  easy  to  forget ;  and  the  institutional  life 
that  carries  with  it  lessons  of  duty,  responsi- 
bility, and  the  necessity  for  cooperation  in  the 
working  out  of  high  ideals,  is  being  put  before 
children  wherever  sound  education  is  given  to- 
day, from  the  kindergarten  to  the  university. 

Finally,  there  is  the  religious  inheritance  of 
the  child.  No  student  of  history  can  doubt 
its  existence  and  no  observer  of  human  nat- 
ure will  undervalue  its  significance.  We  are 
still  far  from  comprehending  fully  the  pre- 
ponderant influence  of  religion  in  shaping  our 
contemporary  civilization ;  an  influence  that  is 
due  in  part  to  the  universality  of  religion 
itself,  and  in  part  to  the  fact  that  it  was, 
beyond  dispute,  the  chief  human  interest  at 
the  time  when  the  foundations  of  our  present 


THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION      29 

superstructure  were  being  laid.  It  has  played 
a  controlling  part  in  education  till  very  re- 
cently, although  it  has  too  often  played  that 
part  in  a  narrow,  illiberal,  and  uninformed 
spirit.  The  progress  of  events  during  the 
nineteenth  century,  however,  has  resulted  in 
greatly  altering  the  relation  of  the  religious 
influence  in  education,  —  at  first  to  education's 
incalculable  gain,  and,  more  recently,  to  edu- 
cation's distinct  loss.  The  growing  tendency 
toward  what  is  known  as  the  separation  of 
church  and  state,  but  what  is  more  accu- 
rately described  as  the  independence  of  man's 
political  and  religious  relationships,  and,  con- 
currently, the  development  of  a  public  educa- 
tional conscience  which  has  led  the  state  to 
take  upon  itself  a  large  share  of  the  responsi- 
bility for  education,  have  brought  about  the 
practical  exclusion  of  the  religious  element 
from  public  education.  This  is  notably  true 
in  France  and  in  the  United  States.  In  the 
state  school  system  of  France,  all  trace  of 
religious  instruction  has  been  lacking  since 
1882;  and  it  is  hard  to  dignify  with  the  names 
influence  or  instruction  the  wretchedly  formal 


30  THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

religious  exercises  that  are  gone  through  with 
in  American  public  schools. 

The  result  of  this  condition  of  affairs  is 
that  religious  teaching  is  rapidly  passing  out 
of  education  entirely ;  and  the  familiarity  with 
the  English  Bible  as  the  greatest  classic  of 
our  tongue,  that  every  cultivated  man  owes 
it  to  himself  to  possess,  is  becoming  a  thing 
of  the  past.  Two  solutions  of  the  difficulty 
are  proposed.  One  is  that  the  state  shall 
tolerate  all  existing  forms  of  religious  teach- 
ing in  its  own  schools,  time  being  set  apart 
for  the  purpose.  The  other  is  that  the  state 
shall  aid,  by  money  grants,  schools  maintained 
by  religious  or  other  corporations.  Neither 
suggestion  is  likely  to  be  received  favorably 
by  the  American  people  at  present,  because 
of  the  bitterness  of  the  war  between  the 
denominational  theologies.  Yet  the  religious 
element  may  not  be  permitted  to  pass  wholly 
out  of  education  unless  we  are  to  cripple  it 
and  render  it  hopelessly  incomplete.  It  must 
devolve  upon  the  family  and  the  church,  then, 
to  give  this  instruction  to  the  child  and  to 
preserve  the  religious  insight  from  loss.     Both 


THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION      31 

family  and  church  must  become  much  more 
efficient,  educationally  speaking,  than  they  are 
now,  if  they  are  to  bear  this  burden  success- 
fully. This  opens  a  series  of  questions  that 
may  not  be  entered  upon  here.  It  is  enough 
to  point  out  that  the  religious  element  of  hu- 
man culture  is  essential ;  and  that,  by  some 
effective  agency,  it  must  be  presented  to 
every  child  whose  education  aims  at  complete- 
ness or  proportion. 

The  period  of  infancy  is  to  be  used  by  civil- 
ized men  for  adaptation  along  these  five  lines, 
in  order  to  introduce  the  child  to  his  intellectual 
and  spiritual  inheritance,  just  as  the  shorter 
period  of  infancy  in  the  lower  animals  is  used 
to  develop,  to  adjust,  and  to  co-ordinate  those 
physical  actions  which  constitute  the  higher 
instincts,  and  which  require  the  larger,  the  more 
deeply  furrowed,  and  the  more  complex  brain. 

That,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  lesson  of  biol- 
ogy, of  physiology,  and  of  psychology,  on  the 
basis  of  the  theory  of  evolution,  regarding  the 
meaning  and  the  place  of  education  in  modern 
life.     It   gives   us   a   conception  of  education 


32  THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

which  must,  I  am  quite  sure,  raise  it  above 
the  mechanical,  the  routine,  the  purely  arti- 
ficial. We  see  that  this  period  of  prepara- 
tion is  not  a  period  of  haphazard  action,  a 
period  of  possible  neglect,  or  a  period  when 
time  may  be  frittered  away  and  lost,  but 
that  every  moment  of  adjustment  is  precious 
and  that  every  new  adaptation  and  correlation 
is  an  enrichment  not  only  of  the  life  of  the  in- 
dividual but  of  the  life  of  the  race.  For  now 
we  all  understand  perfectly  well  that  this 
long  period  of  infancy  and  adaptation,  this 
period  of  plasticity  and  education,  is  that  which 
makes  progress  possible.  That  is  why  it  is 
entirely  correct  to  say  that  each  generation 
is  the  trustee  of  civilization.  Each  generation 
owes  it  to  itself  and  to  its  posterity  to  protect 
its  culture,  to  enrich  it  and  to  transmit  it. 
The  institution  that  mankind  has  worked  out 
for  that  purpose  is  the  institution  known  as 
education.  When  a  child  has  entered  into  this 
inheritance,  first  physical,  then  scientific,  liter- 
ary, aesthetic,  institutional,  and  religious,  then 
we  use  the  word  culture  to  signify  the  state 
that  has  been  attained. 


THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION  33 

The  word  culture  is  very  modern.  It  is 
used  in  its  present  sense  only  during  the  latter 
portion  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  during 
our  own.  It  owes  its  present  significance 
largely  to  Goethe  and  to  Herder,  the  two 
men  who  did  most  to  make  it  familiar  in  its 
modern  sense.  But  while  the  word  may  be 
new,  the  conception  itself  is  old.  It  is  the 
7raiBe(a  of  the  Greeks,  the  humanitas  of  the 
Romans  ;  and  after  all  it  expresses  pretty  much 
what  the  patrician  Roman,  dwelling  in  his 
country  house,  had  in  mind  when  he  sent  his 
boy,  after  giving  him  some  instruction  in  agri- 
culture, in  law,  and  in  military  duty,  to  the 
great  city  of  Rome  itself  in  order  to  obtain 
urbanitas,  city-ness.  We  have  softened  that 
word  down  until  it  means  merely  polished  man- 
ner, but  when  the  Romans  first  used  it  they 
meant  by  it  pretty  much  what  we  mean  by 
culture.  The  conception  of  culture  is  old, 
therefore ;  it  has  always  been  before  the  ideal- 
ists of  the  human  race  from  the  earliest  times. 
We  have  given  to  this  new  word  rich,  full, 
and  diversified  meaning,  based,  as  I  say,  upon 
the   knowledge   of    the    child    and   upon    the 


34      THE  MEANING  OF  EDUCATION 

knowledge  of  the  historic  past.  When  we 
use  it  in  that  sense,  we  are  using  it,  as  we 
may  properly,  to  indicate  the  ideal  of  our 
modern  education. 


WHAT    KNOWLEDGE    IS    OF    MOST 
WORTH  ? 


Presidential  Address 

delivered  before  the 

National  Educational  Association 

at  Denver,  Colorado,  July  9,  1895 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST 
WORTH? 

The  student  of  history  is  struck  with  the 
complexity  of  modern  thought.  From  the 
dawn  of  philosophy  to  the  great  Revival  of 
Learning  the  lines  of  development  are  com- 
paratively simple  and  direct.  During  that 
period  one  may  trace,  step  by  step,  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  main  problems  of  thought  and 
action,  and  discover  readily  how  the  theories  of 
the  seers  stood  the  test  of  application  by  the 
men  of  deeds.  At  Athens  during  the  great 
fifth  century  the  inner  life  was  the  chief  part 
of  life  itself.  In  that  age  of  the  world  life 
was  simple ;  and  often,  because  of  its  refine- 
ment and  independence,  more  reflective  than 
with  us.  Men's  ideals  were  more  sharply 
defined  and  more  easily  realizable.  They  did 
not  doubt  that  the  world  existed  for  them  and 
37 


38     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

their  enjoyment.  Even  that  relatively  advanced 
stage  of  human  culture  of  which  Dante  is  the 
immortal  exponent,  believed,  as  Mr.  John  Fiske 
says,1  that  "  this  earth,  the  fair  home  of  man, 
was  placed  in  the  centre  of  a  universe  wherein 
all  things  were  ordained  for  his  sole  behoof:  the 
sun  to  give  him  light  and  warmth,  the  stars  in 
their  courses  to  preside  over  his  strangely 
checkered  destinies,  the  winds  to  blow,  the 
floods  to  rise,  or  the  fiend  of  pestilence  to  stalk 
abroad  over  the  land  —  all  for  the  blessing,  or 
the  warning,  or  the  chiding,  of  the  chief 
among  God's  creatures,  Man."  With  such  a 
conception  as  this,  theory  and  practice  could  be 
closely  related.  In  the  ancient  world  it  was. 
not  unusual  to  find  the  thought  of  the  disciple 
guided  implicitly  by  the  maxim  of  the  master. 
TvwOi  creavrov  and  Nil  admirari  were  preached 
by  the  early  philosophers  in  the  confident  be- 
lief that  they  could  be  practised  by  him  who 
would. 

In  these   modern   days  all  this  is  changed. 
Man  has  come  to  doubt  not  only  his  supremacy 
in  the  universe,  but  even  his  importance.     He 
1  The  destiny  of  man  (Boston,  1887),  p.  12. 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH?      39 

finds  that,  far  from  dwelling  at  the  centre  of 
things,  he  is  but  "the  denizen  of  an  obscure 
and  tiny  speck  of  cosmical  matter  quite  invisi- 
ble amid  the  innumerable  throng  of  flaming 
suns  that  make  up  our  galaxy."  A  flood  of 
new  knowledge  has  appealed  to  human  sympa- 
thy and  interest,  and  has  taxed  them  to  the 
utmost.  Galileo  with  his  telescope  has  re- 
vealed to  us  the  infinitely  great ;  and  the  com- 
pound microscope  of  Jansen  has  created,  as  out 
of  nothing,  the  world  of  the  infinitely  small. 
Within  a  generation  or  two  biology  has  been 
created  ;  and  physics,  chemistry,  and  geology 
have  been  born  again.  The  first  wave  of 
astonishment  and  delight  at  these  great  revela- 
tions has  been  succeeded  by  one  of  perplexity 
and  doubt  in  the  presence  of  the  wholly  new 
problems  that  they  raise.  The  old  self-assur- 
ance is  lost.  Men  first  stumble,  blinded  by  the 
new  and  unaccustomed  light,  and  then  despair. 
The  age  of  the  faith  and  assured  conviction  of 
Aquinas  was  followed  by  the  bold  and  cynical 
scepticism  of  Montaigne  ;  and  this  in  turn  — 
for  scepticism  has  never  afforded  a  resting- 
place  for  the   human   spirit   for   more   than   a 


40     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

moment  —  has  yielded  to  the  philosophy  of  dis- 
enchantment and  despair  of  a  Schopenhauer 
and  the  morbidly  acute  and  unsatisfying  self- 
analysis  of  an  Amiel.  Already  it  is  proclaimed 
by  Nordau  and  his  school  that  we  are  in  an  age 
of  decadence,  and  that  many  of  our  contempo- 
rary interpreters  of  life  and  thought  —  Wag- 
ner, Tolstoi,  Ibsen,  Zola,  the  pre-Raphaelites  — 
are  fit  subjects  for  an  insane  asylum.  Man- 
kind is  divided  into  warring  camps,  and  while 
electricity  and  steam  have  bound  the  nations  of 
the  earth  together,  questions  of  knowledge  and 
of  belief  have  split  up  every  nation  into  sects. 
In  all  this  tumult  it  is  difficult  to  catch  the 
sound  of  the  dominant  note.  Each  suggested 
interpretation  seems  to  lead  us  further  into  the 
tangled  maze,  where  we  cannot  see  the  wood 
for  the  trees.  Standards  of  truth  are  more 
definite  than  ever  before ;  but  standards  of 
worth  are  strangely  confused,  and  at  times 
even  their  existence  is  denied. 

Amid  all  this  confusion,  however,  a  light  has 
been  growing  steadily  brighter  for  those  who 
have  eyes  to  see.  In  our  own  century  two 
great  masters  of  thought  have  come  forward, 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE   IS  OF  MOST  WORTH?     41 

offering,  like  Ariadne  of  old,  to  place  in  our 
hands  the  guiding  thread  that  shall  lead  us 
through  the  labyrinth  —  the  German  Hegel 
and  the  Englishman  Herbert  Spencer.  And 
as  the  century  closes,  amid  the  din  of  other  and 
lesser  voices,  we  seem  to  hear  the  deeper  tones 
of  these  two  interpreters  swelling  forth  as 
representative  of  the  best  and  most  earnest 
endeavors,  from  two  totally  different  points  of 
view,  of  human  seekers  after  light.  Each  has 
taken  the  whole  of  knowledge  for  his  province, 
each  has  spread  out  before  us  a  connected  view 
of  man  and  his  environment,  and  each  would 

"...  assert  Eternal  Providence 
And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men." 

These  great  teachers  typify  the  catholicity  and 
the  scientific  method  that  are  so  characteristic 
of  the  best  expressions  of  our  modern  civiliza- 
tion Whatever  of  insight  we  have  gained 
into  history,  into  philosophy,  into  art,  and  into 
nature,  they  have  incorporated  in  their  syste- 
matic thinking  and  have  endeavored  to  illumine 
with  the  light  of  their  controlling  principles. 
Hegel,  schooled  in  the  teachings  of  Kant  and 


42     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

Fichte,  and  coming  early  to  an  appreciation  of 
the  seed-thought  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  Bruno 
and  Spinoza,  has  taught  us  in  unmistakable 
language  that  independent,  self -active  being  is 
the  father  of  all  things.  Spencer,  feeling  the 
thrill  of  that  unity  which  makes  the  cosmos 
one,  and  receiving  from  Lamarck  and  von 
Baer  the  hint  that  led  him  to  see  that  the  life 
of  the  individual  furnishes  the  clew  to  the 
understanding  of  the  life  of  the  aggregate, 
whether  natural  or  social,  has  formulated  into 
a  single  and  irrefutable  law  of  progress  the 
terms  of  that  development,  or  evolution,  which 
has  been  more  or  less  dimly  before  the  mind  of 
man  since  thought  began.  The  German  with 
his  principle  of  self -activity,  and  the  English- 
man with  his  law  of  evolution,  offer  us  a  foot- 
hold for  our  knowledge  and  our  faith,  and 
assure  us  that  it  will  safely  support  them. 
From  the  one  we  learn  the  eternal  reasonable- 
ness of  all  that  is  or  can  be,  while  the  other 
teaches  us  the  character  of  the  process  by 
which  the  visible  universe,  that  every  day  pre- 
sents new  wonders  to  our  gaze,  has  been 
builded   out   of    the   primeval   star-dust.      At 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE   IS  OF  MOST  WORTH?     43 

their  hands  the  two  sublime  and  awe-inspiring 
verities  of  Kant  —  the  starry  heavens  above 
and  the  moral  law  within  —  find  their  places  in 
the  life  of  the  spirit,  and  together  testify  to  its 
eternity  and  its  beauty. 

Despite  the  fact  that  our  age  is  one  of  un- 
exampled scientific  and  industrial  progress, 
yet  nothing  in  all  our  modern  scientific  activ- 
ity is  more  striking  than  the  undisputed 
primacy  of  thought  —  thought  not  in  antago- 
nism to  sense,  but  interpretative  of  the  data 
of  sense.  Idealism,  shorn  of  its  crudities 
and  its  extravagances,  and  based  on  reason 
rather  than  on  Berkeley's  analysis  of  sense- 
perception,  is  conquering  the  world.  What 
Plato  saw,  Descartes,  Leibniz,  Kant,  and 
Hegel  have  demonstrated.  The  once-dreaded 
materialism  has  lost  all  its  terrors.  Science 
itself  has  analyzed  matter  into  an  aggregate 
of  dynamical  systems,  and  speaks  of  energy 
in  terms  of  will.  The  seemingly  inert  stone 
that  we  grasp  in  our  hand  is  in  reality  an 
aggregate  of  an  infinite  number  of  rapidly- 
moving  centres  of  energy.  Our  own  will 
is  the  only  energy  of  whose  direct  action  we 


44     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE   IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

are  immediately  conscious,  and  we  use  our 
experience  of  it  to  explain  other  manifestations 
of  energy  to  ourselves.  Modern  mathemat- 
ics, that  most  astounding  of  intellectual  crea- 
tions, has  projected  the  mind's  eye  through 
infinite  time  and  the  mind's  hand  into  bound- 
less space.  The  very  instants  of  the  begin- 
nings of  the  sun's  eclipses  are  predicted  for 
centuries  and  seons  to  come.  Sirius,  so  dis- 
tant that  the  light  from  its  surface,  travelling 
at  a  rate  of  speed  that  vies  with  the  light- 
ning, requires  more  than  eight  and  one-half 
years  to  reach  us,  is  weighed,  and  its  constitu- 
ents are  counted  almost  as  accurately  as  are 
the  bones  of  our  bodies.  Yet  in  1842  Comte 
declared  that  it  was  forever  impossible  to 
hope  to  determine  the  chemical  composition 
or  the  mineralogical  structure  of  the  stars. 
An  unexpected  aberration  in  the  motions  of 
Uranus  foretold  an  undiscovered  planet  at  a 
given  spot  in  the  sky,  and  the  telescope  of 
Galle,  turned  to  that  precise  point,  revealed 
to  the  astonished  senses  what  was  certain  to 
thought.  But  yesterday  a  discrepancy  in  the 
weight  of  nitrogen  extracted  from  the  air  we 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH?     45 

breathe,  led  Lord  Rayleigh,  by  an  inexorable 
logic,  to  the  discovery  of  a  new  atmospheric 
constituent,  argon.  The  analytical  geometry 
of  Descartes  and  the  calculus  of  Newton  and 
Leibniz  have  expanded  into  the  marvellous 
mathematical  method  —  more  daring  in  its 
speculations  than  anything  that  the  history 
of  philosophy  records  —  of  Lobachevsky  and 
Riemann,  Gauss  and  Sylvester.  Indeed, 
mathematics,  the  indispensable  tool  of  the 
sciences,  defying  the  senses  to  follow  its 
splendid  flights,  is  demonstrating  to-day,  as 
it  has  never  been  demonstrated  before,  the 
supremacy  of  the  pure  reason.  The  great 
Cayley  —  who  has  been  given  the  proud  title 
of  the  Darwin  of  the  English  school  of 
mathematicians  —  said  a  few  years  ago  : 1  "I 
would  myself  say  that  the  purely  imaginary 
objects  are  the  only  realities,  the  6W&)?  oma, 
in  regard  to  which  the  corresponding  physi- 
cal objects  are  as  the  shadows  in  the  cave ; 
and  it  is  only  by  means  of  them  that  we  are 
able   to   deny  the   existence   of   a  correspond- 

1  Presidential  address,  British  Association  for  the  Ad- 
vanccment  of  Science,  Southport,  1883. 


46     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

ing  physical  object;  and  if  there  is  no  con- 
ception of  straightness,  then  it  is  meaningless 
to  deny  the  conception  of  a  perfectly  straight 
line." 

The  physicist,  also,  is  coming  to  see  that 
his  principle  of  the  conservation  of  energy  in 
its  various  manifestations  is  a  new  and  star- 
tling proof  of  the  fundamental  philosophical 
principle  of  self-activity.  Energy  manifests 
itself  as  motion,  heat,  light,  electricity,  chemi- 
cal action,  sound.  Each  form  of  its  mani- 
festation is  transmutable  into  others.  The 
self -active  cycle  is  complete. 

But  it  is  not  from  the  domain  of  natural 
science  alone  that  illustrations  of  the  all- 
conquering  power  of  thought  can  be  drawn. 
The  genius  of  Champollion  has  called  to  life 
the  thoughts  and  deeds  of  Amenotep  and 
Rameses ;  and  what  appeared  to  sense  as  rude 
decorative  sketches  on  the  walls  of  temple 
and  of  tomb  are  seen  by  the  understanding 
to  be  the  recorded  history  of  a  great  civiliza- 
tion in  the  valley  of  the  Nile.  The  inscruta- 
ble Sphinx,  that  watchdog  of  the  Pyramids, 
"  unchangeable  in  the  midst  of  change,"  which 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE   IS  OF  MOST  WORTH?     47 

sat  facing  the  coming  dawn  for  centuries 
before  the  storied  siege  of  Troy,  now  looks 
down  on  modern  men  who  write  the  very 
words  of  its  builders  in  the  language  of 
Shakspere  and  of  Milton.  The  cries  of  sav- 
age man,  the  language-symbols  of  the  early 
Aryans,  and  the  multiform  and  complicated 
tongues  of  modern  Europe,  all  so  seemingly 
diverse  to  the  ear  and  to  the  eye,  have  been 
the  foundation  for  the  sure  laws  of  compara- 
tive philology  that  the  labors  of  Bopp  and 
Grimm  and  Verner  have  erected  upon  them. 
All  these,  and  the  many  triumphs  like  them, 
are  victories  of  insight ;  each  marks  a  new 
stage  in  the  conquering  progress  of  the 
reason,  by  which  it  finds  itself  in  every  part 
and  in  every  phase  of  the  cosmos  and  its 
life. 

The  insight  as  to  self-activity  and  the  pri- 
macy of  reflective  thought,  I  regard  as  the 
profoundest  that  philosophy  has  to  offer  ;  and, 
instead  of  being  urged,  as  in  centuries  past,  in 
antagonism  to  the  teachings  of  science,  it  is 
now  becoming  the  joint  conclusion  of  philoso- 
phy and  science  together.    It  is  thought  that 


48     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

pulsates  in  the  world's  grandest  poetry  and  in 
its  most  exquisite  art.  It  is  the  very  soul  of 
the  verse  of  Homer  and  of  Dante,  of  Shaks- 
pere  and  of  Goethe.  It  makes  the  marble 
of  Phidias  glow  with  life,  and  it  guides  the 
hands  of  Raphael  and  Michael  Angelo  as  they 
trace  their  wondrous  figures  with  the  brush. 
It  gives  immortality  to  the  most  beautiful 
of  temples,  the  Parthenon;  and  it  is  the  inspi- 
ration of  that  superb  mediaeval  architecture, 
which  bears  the  name  of  the  conquerors  of 
Home,  and  which  has  given  to  Northern 
Europe  its  grandest  monuments  to  the  reli- 
gious aspiration  and  devotion  of  the  Middle 
Ages. 

What,  then,  does  this  primacy  of  thought 
signify,  and  what  is  its  bearing  upon  our  educa- 
tional ideals  ?  Obviously  the  possession  of  a 
conclusion  such  as  this,  wrested  from  nature  by 
the  hand  of  science  and  from  history  by  that  of 
philosophy,  must  serve  in  many  ways  to  guide 
us  in  estimating  the  importance  of  human  insti- 
tutions and  of  educational  instruments.  We 
cannot  accept  either  of  these,  without  question, 
from   the   hands   of   a  tradition  to  which  our 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE   IS  OF  MOST  WORTH?     49 

modern  philosophy  and  our  modern  science  were 
wholly  unknown ;  nor  can  we  blindly  follow 
those  believers  in  a  crude  psychology  who 
would  present  us  with  so  many  mental  facul- 
ties to  be  trained,  each  by  its  appropriate  formal 
exercise,  as  if  they  were  sticks  of  wood  to  be 
shaped  and  reduced  to  symmetry  and  order. 
Mental  life,  as  Wundt  so  forcibly  says,  u  does 
not  consist  in  the  connection  of  unalterable 
objects  and  varying  conditions :  in  all  its 
phases  it  is  process ;  an  active,  not  a  pas- 
sive, existence  ;  development,  not  stagnation."1 
Herein  is  mental  life  true  to  nature.  Like 
nature,  it  is  not  fixed,  but  ever  changing,  and 
this  unceasing  change,  necessary  to  both 
growth  and  development,  gives  to  life  both  its 
reality  and  its  pathos.  It  gives  also  to  edu- 
cation its  unending  character,  and  to  mankind 
the  clew  to  education's  wisest  processes. 

The  question  that  I  am  asking  —  what 
knowledge  is  of  most  worth?  —  is  a  very  old 
one,  and  the  answers  to  it  which  have  been 
handed  down  through  the  centuries  are  many 

1  Lectures  on  human  and  animal  psychology  (New  York, 
1804),  p.  464. 


50     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE   IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

and  various.  It  is  a  question  which  each  age 
must  put  to  itself,  and  answer  from  the  stand- 
point of  its  deepest  and  widest  knowledge. 
The  wisest  philosophers  have  always  seen, 
more  or  less  clearly,  the  far-reaching  character 
of  the  question  and  the  great  importance  of 
the  answer.  Socrates  and  Plato,  Augustine 
and  Aquinas,  were  under  no  illusions  as  to  it ; 
but  often  in  later  years  the  deeper  questions 
relating  to  the  relative  worth  of  subjects  of 
study  have  been  either  entirely  lost  sight  of 
or  very  superficially  dealt  with.  Bacon  clothes 
in  attractive  axiomatic  form  some  very  crude 
judgments  as  to  the  relative  worth  of  studies. 
Rousseau  outlines  an  educational  programme 
that  ruined  his  reputation  for  sobriety  of  judg- 
ment. Herbert  Spencer  turns  aside  for  a 
moment  from  his  life-work  to  apotheosize  sci- 
ence in  education,  although  science  is,  by  his 
own  definition,  only  partially  unified  know- 
ledge. Whewell  exalts  mathematics  in  lan- 
guage only  less  extravagant  than  that  in  which 
Sir  William  Hamilton  decries  it.  In  similar 
fashion,  others,  holding  a  brief  for  some  par- 
ticular   phase   or    department    of    knowledge, 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE   IS  OF  MOST  WORTH?     51 

have  come  forward  crying  Eureka  !  and  pro- 
claiming that  the  value  of  all  studies  must  be 
measured  in  terms  of  their  newly-discovered 
standard.  The  very  latest  cry  is  that  studies 
and  intellectual  exercises  are  valuable  in  pro- 
portion as  they  stimulate  enlarged  brain-areas, 
thus  making  the  appreciation  of  Shakspere,  of 
Beethoven,  and  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci  solely  a 
function  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood. 

But  to  sciolists  of  this  type  philosophy  and 
science  can  now  make  common  answer.  If  it 
be  true  that  spirit  and  reason  rule  the  uni- 
verse, then  the  highest  and  most  enduring 
knowledge  is  of  the  things  of  the  spirit.  That 
subtle  sense  of  the  beautiful  and  the  sublime 
which  accompanies  spiritual  insight,  and  is 
part  of  it,  —  this  is  the  highest  achievement 
of  which  humanity  is  capable.  It  is  typified, 
in  various  forms,  in  the  verse  of  Dante  and 
the  prose  of  Thomas  a  Kempis,  in  the  Sistine 
Madonna  of  Raphael,  and  in  Mozart's  Re- 
quiem. To  develop  this  sense  in  education 
is  the  task  of  art  and  literature,  to  interpret 
it  is  the  work  of  philosophy,  and  to  nourish 
it  the  function  of  religion.     Because  it  most 


52     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE   IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

fully  represents  the  higher  nature  of  man,  it  is 
man's  highest  possession,  and  those  studies 
that  directly  appeal  to  it  and  instruct  it  are 
beyond  compare  the  most  valuable.  This  has 
been  eloquently  and  beautifully  illustrated  by 
Brother  Azarias.  "  Take  a  Raphael  or  a 
Murillo,"  he  says.1  "We  gaze  upon  the 
painted  canvas  till  its  beauty  has  entered  our 
soul.  The  splendor  of  the  beauty  lights  up 
within  us  depths  unrevealed,  and  far  down  in 
our  inner  consciousness  we  discover  something 
that  responds  to  the  beauty  on  which  we  have 
been  gazing.  It  is  as  though  a  former  friend 
revealed  himself  to  us.  There  is  here  a  recog- 
nition. The  more  careful  has  been  our  sense- 
culture,  the  more  delicately  have  our  feelings 
been  attuned  to  respond  to  a  thing  of  beauty 
and  find  in  it  a  joy  forever,  all  the  sooner  and 
the  more  intensely  do  we  experience  this  recog- 
nition. And  therewith  comes  a  vague  yearn- 
ing, a  longing  as  for  something.  What  does  it 
all  mean?  The  recognition  is  of  the  ideal." 
Toward  the  full  recognition  and  appreciation 

1  Phases  of  thought  and  criticism   (New  York,   1892), 
pp.  67,  68. 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE   IS  OF  MOST  WORTH?     58 

of  this  insight  into  the  great  works  of  the 
spirit,  whether  recorded  in  literature,  in  art, 
or  in  institutional  life,  higher  education  should 
bend  all  its  energies.  The  study  of  philosophy 
itself,  or  the  truly  philosophic  study  of  any 
department  of  knowledge  —  however  remote  its 
beginnings  may  seem  to  be  —  will  accomplish 
this  end.  The  ways  of  approach  to  this  goal 
are  as  many  as  there  are  human  interests,  for 
they  are  all  bound  together  in  the  bonds  of 
a  common  origin  and  a  common  purpose.  The 
attainment  of  it  is  true  culture,  as  Matthew 
Arnold  has  defined  it :  "  the  acquainting  our- 
selves with  the  best  that  has  been  known  and 
said  in  the  world,  and  thus  with  the  history  of 
the  human  spirit." 1 

We  now  come  in  sight  of  the  element  of  truth 
and  permanence  in  that  Humanism  which  Pe- 
trarch and  Erasmus  spread  over  Europe  with 
such  high  hopes  and  excellent  intentions  ;  but 
which  Sturm,  the  Strassburg  schoolmaster,  re- 
duced to  the  dead,  mechanical  forms  and  the 
crude  verbalism  that  bound  the  schools  in  fet- 
ters for  centuries.  Of  Humanism  itself  we 
1  Preface  to  Literature  and  dogma  (New  York,  1889),  p.  xi. 


64     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

may  say,  as  Pater  says  of  the  Renaissance  of 
the  fifteenth  century,  that  "  it  was  great  rather 
by  what  it  designed  than  by  what  it  achieved. 
Much  which  it  aspired  to  do,  and  did  but  im- 
perfectly or  mistakenly,  was  accomplished  in 
what  is  called  the  Sclaircissement  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  or  in  our  own  generation  ;  and 
what  really  belongs  to  the  revival  of  the  fif- 
teenth century  is  but  the  leading  instinct,  the 
curiosity,  the  initiatory  idea."1 

Many  of  the  representative  Humanists  were 
broad-minded  men  whose  sympathies  were  with 
learning  of  every  kind.  Erasmus  himself  write*s 
with  enthusiasm  of  other  branches  of  know- 
ledge than  literature.  "Learning,"  he  says, 
"  is  springing  up  all  around  out  of  the  soil ; 
languages,  physics,  mathematics,  each  depart- 
ment thriving.  Even  theology  is  showing  signs 
of  improvement."2  But  unfortunately  this 
broad  sympathy  with  every  field  of  knowledge 
was  not  yet  widespread.  The  wonders  and 
splendor  of  nature  that  had  brought  into  exist- 

1  Pater,  The  renaissance  (New  York,  1888),  p.  34. 

2  Froude,  Life  and  letters  of  Erasmus  (New  York,  1894), 
p.  186. 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH?     55 

ence  the  earliest  religions  and  the  earliest  phi- 
losophies were  now  feared  and  despised  as  the 
basis  of  paganism  ;  and  on  wholly  false  grounds 
a  controversy  was  precipitated  as  to  the  relative 
worth  of  literature  and  of  science  that  in  one 
form  or  another  has  continued  down  to  our 
own  day.  The  bitterness  with  which  the  con- 
troversy has  been  carried  on,  and  the  extreme 
positions  assumed  by  the  partisans  of  the  one 
side  or  the  other,  have  concealed  from  view  the 
truth  that  we  are  now  able  to  perceive  clearly 
—  the  truth  that  the  indwelling  reason,  by 
whom  all  things  are  made,  is  as  truly  present, 
though  in  a  different  order  of  manifestation, 
in  the  world  of  nature  as  in  the  world  of  spirit. 
One  side  of  this  truth  was  expressed  by  Schel- 
ling  when  he  taught  that  nature  is  the  em- 
bryonic life  of  spirit,  and  by  Froebel  when  he 
wrote,  "  The  spirit  of  God  rests  in  nature,  lives 
and  reigns  in  nature,  is  expressed  in  nature,  is 
communicated  by  nature,  is  developed  and  cul- 
tivated in  nature." *  The  controversy  as  to 
the  educational  value  of  science,  so  far,  at  least, 

1  Education  of  man,  translated  by  W.  N.  Hailmann, 
(New  York,  1887),  p.  154. 


56     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE   IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

as  it  concerns  educational  standards  and  ideals, 
is,  then,  an  illusory  one.  It  is  a  mimic  war, 
with  words  alone  as  weapons,  that  is  fought 
either  to  expel  nature  from  education  or  to 
subordinate  all  else  in  education  to  it.  We 
should  rather  say,  in  the  stately  verse  of 
Milton  : 

"  Accuse  not  Nature :  she  bath  done  her  part ; 
Do  thou  but  thine." 

And  that  part  is  surely  to  study  nature  joy- 
fully, earnestly,  reverently,  as  a  mighty  mani- 
festation of  the  power  and  grandeur  of  the 
same  spirit  that  finds  expression  in  human 
achievement.  We  must  enlarge,  then,  our 
conception  of  the  humanities,  for  humanity  is 
broader  and  deeper  than  we  have  hitherto  sus- 
pected. It  touches  the  universe  at  many  more 
points  than  one  ;  and,  properly  interpreted, 
the  study  of  nature  may  be  classed  among  the 
humanities  as  truly  as  the  study  of  language 
itself. 

This  conclusion,  which  would  welcome  sci- 
ence with  open  arms  into  the  school  and  util- 
ize its  opportunities  and  advantages  at  every 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH?     57 

stage  of  education,  does  not  mean  that  all 
studies  are  of  equal  educational  value,  or  that 
they  are  mutually  and  indifferently  inter- 
changeable, as  are  the  parts  of  some  machines. 
It  means  rather  that  the  study  of  nature  is 
entitled  to  recognition  on  grounds  similar  to 
those  put  forward  for  the  study  of  literature, 
of  art,  and  of  history.  But  among  themselves 
these  divisions  of  knowledge  fall  into  an  order 
of  excellence  as  educational  material  that  is 
determined  by  their  respective  relations  to  the 
development  of  the  reflective  reason.  The 
application  of  this  test  must  inevitably  lead 
us,  while  honoring  science  and  insisting  upon 
its  study,  to  place  above  it  the  study  of  his- 
tory, of  literature,  of  art,  and  of  institutional 
life.  But  these  studies  may  not  for  a  moment 
be  carried  on  without  the  study  of  nature  or 
in  neglect  of  it.  They  are  all  humanities  in 
the  truest  sense,  and  it  is  a  false  philosophy 
of  education  that  would  cut  us  off  from  any 
one  of  them  or  that  would  deny  the  common 
ground  on  which  they  rest.  In  every  field  of 
knowledge  what  we  are  studying  is  some  law 
or  phase  of  energy,  and  the  original  as  well  as 


58     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

the  highest  energy  is  will.  In  the  world  of 
nature  it  is  exhibited  in  one  series  of  forms, 
those  which  produce  the  results  known  to 
us  as  chemical,  physical,  biological ;  in  the 
history  of  mankind,  it  is  manifested  in  the 
forms  of  feelings,  thoughts,  deeds,  institutions. 
Because  the  elements  of  self-consciousness  and 
reflection  are  present  in  the  latter  series  and 
absent  in  the  former,  it  is  to  these  and  the 
knowledge  of  them  that  we  must  accord  the 
first  place  in  any  table  of  educational  values. 
But  education,  as  Mr.  Froude  has  reminded 
us,1  has  two  aspects.  "  On  one  side  it  is  the 
cultivation  of  man's  reason,  the  development 
of  his  spiritual  nature.  It  elevates  him  above 
the  pressure  of  material  interests.  It  makes 
him  superior  to  the  pleasures  and  pains  of  a 
world  which  is  but  his  temporary  home,  in 
filling  his  mind  with  higher  subjects  than  the 
occupations  of  life  would  themselves  provide 
him  with."  It  is  this  aspect  of  education  that 
I  have  been  considering,  for  it  is  from  this 
aspect  that  we  derive  our  inspiration  and  our 

1  Short  studies  on  great  subjects  (New  York,  1872),  II, 
257. 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH?     59 

ideals.  "But,"  continues  Mr.  Froude,  "a  life 
of  speculation  to  the  multitude  would  be  a 
life  of  idleness  and  uselessness.  They  have 
to  maintain  themselves  in  industrious  inde- 
pendence in  a  world  in  which  it  has  been 
said  there  are  but  three  possible  modes  of 
existence  —  begging,  stealing,  and  working ; 
and  education  means  also  the  equipping  a 
man  with  means  to  earn  his  own  living."  It 
is  this  latter  and  very  practical  aspect  of  edu- 
cation that  causes  us  to  feel  at  times  the  full 
force  of  the  question  of  worth  in  education. 
Immediate  utility  makes  demands  upon  the 
school  which  it  is  unable  wholly  to  neglect. 
If  the  school  is  to  be  the  training-ground  for 
citizenship,  its  products  must  be  usefully  and 
soundly  equipped  as  well  as  well  disciplined 
and  well  informed.  An  educated  proletariat 
—  to  use  the  forcible  paradox  of  Bismarck  — 
is  a  continual  source  of  disturbance  and  dan- 
ger to  any  nation.  Acting  upon  this  convic- 
tion, the  great  modern  democracies  —  and  the 
time  seems  to  have  come  when  a  democracy 
may  be  defined  as  a  government,  of  any  form, 
in  which  public  opinion  habitually  rules  —  are 


60     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

everywhere  having  a  care  that  in  education 
provision  be  made  for  the  practical,  or  immedi- 
ately useful.  This  is  as  it  should  be,  but  it 
exposes  the  school  to  a  new  series  of  dangers 
against  which  it  must  guard.  Utility  is  a 
term  that  may  be  given  either  a  very  broad 
or  a  very  narrow  meaning.  There  are  utilities 
higher  and  utilities  lower,  and  under  no  cir- 
cumstances will  the  true  teacher  ever  permit 
the  former  to  be  sacrificed  to  the  latter.  This 
would  be  done  if,  in  its  zeal  for  fitting  the 
child  for  self-support,  the  school  were  to  neg- 
lect to  lay  the  foundation  for  that  higher 
intellectual  and  spiritual  life  which  consti- 
tutes humanity's  full  stature.  This  founda- 
tion is  made  ready  only  if  proper  emphasis 
be  laid,  from  the  kindergarten  to  the  college, 
on  those  studies  whose  subject-matter  is  the 
direct  product  of  intelligence  and  will,  and 
which  can,  therefore,  make  direct  appeal  to 
man's  higher  nature.  The  sciences  and  their 
applications  are  capable  of  use,  even  from  the 
standpoint  of  this  higher  order  of  utilities, 
because  of  the  reason  they  exhibit  and  reveal. 
Man's  rational  freedom  is  the  goal,  and  the 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH?     61 

sciences  are   the    lower  steps   on   the    ladder 
that  reaches  to  it. 

A  splendid  confirmation  of  this  view  of  sci- 
ence is  found  in  the  great  Belfast  address  in 
which  Professor  Tyndall  stormed  the  strong- 
holds of  prejudice  one  and  twenty  years  ago. 
Said  Professor  Tyndall :  * 

"  Science  itself  not  unfrequently  derives  motive 
power  from  an  ultra-scientific  source.  Some  of  its 
greatest  discoveries  have  been  made  under  the 
stimulus  of  a  non-scientific  ideal.  This  was  the 
case  amongst  the  ancients,  and  it  has  been  so 
amongst  ourselves.  Mayer,  Joule,  and  Colding, 
whose  names  are  associated  with  the  greatest 
of  modern  generalizations,  were  thus  influenced. 
With  his  usual  insight,  Lange  at  one  place  re- 
marks that  'it  is  not  always  the  objectively  cor- 
rect and  intelligible  that  helps  man  most,  or  leads 
most  quickly  to  the  fullest  and  truest  knowledge. 
As  the  sliding  body  upon  the  brachystochrone 
reaches  its  end  sooner  than  by  the  straighter  road 
of  the  inclined  plane,  so  through  the  swing  of 
the  ideal  we  often  arrive  at  the  naked  truth 
more  rapidly  than  by  the  more  direct  processes 
of    the  understanding.'    Whewell    speaks  of    en- 

1  Presidential  address,  British  Association  for  the  Ad- 
vancement of  Science,  Belfast,  1874. 


62     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

thusiasni  of  temper  as  a  hindrance  to  science; 
but  he  means  the  enthusiasm  of  weak  heads. 
There  is  a  strong  and  resolute  enthusiasm  in 
which  science  finds  an  ally ;  and  it  is  to  the 
lowering  of  this  fire,  rather  than  to  the  diminu- 
tion of  intellectual  insight,  that  the  lessening 
productiveness  of  men  of  science  in  their  mature 
years  is  to  be  ascribed.  Mr.  Buckle  sought  to 
detach  intellectual  achievement  from  moral  force. 
He  gravely  erred;  for  without  moral  force  to 
whip  it  into  action,  the  achievements  of  the  in- 
tellect would  be  poor  indeed. 

"It  has  been  said  that  science  divorces  itself 
from  literature;  but  the  statement,  like  so  many 
others,  arises  from  lack  of  knowledge.  A  glance  at 
the  less  technical  writings  of  its  leaders  —  of  its 
Helmholtz,  its  Huxley,  and  its  du  Bois-Eeymond — 
would  show  what  breadth  of  literary  culture  they 
command.  Where  among  modern  writers  can  you 
find  their  superiors  in  clearness  and  vigor  of  liter- 
ary style  ?  Science  desires  not  isolation,  but  freely 
combines  with  every  effort  toward  the  bettering  of 
man's  estate.  Single-handed,  and  supported  not  by 
outward  sympathy,  but  by  inward  force,  it  has 
built  at  least  one  great  wing  of  the  many-man- 
sioned  home  which  man  in  his  totality  demands. 
And  if  rough  walls  and  protruding  rafter-ends  in- 
dicate that  on  one  side  the  edifice  is  still  incom- 
plete, it  is  only  by  wise  combination  of  the  parts 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH?     63 

required  with  those  already  irrevocably  built  that 
we  can  hope  for  completeness.  There  is  no  neces- 
sary incongruity  between  what  has  been  accom- 
plished and  what  remains  to  be  done.  The  moral 
glow  of  Socrates,  which  we  all  feel  by  ignition,  has 
in  it  nothing  incompatible  with  the  physics  of 
Anaxagoras  which  he  so  much  scorned,  but  which 
he  would  hardly  scorn  to-day.  .  .  . 

"  The  world  embraces  not  only  a  Newton,  but  a 
Shakspere — not  only  a  Boyle,  but  a  Raphael  —  not 
only  a  Kant,  but  a  Beethoven  —  not  only  a  Darwin, 
but  a  Carlyle.  Not  in  each  of  these,  but  in  all,  is 
human  nature  whole.  They  are  not  opposed,  but 
supplementary — not  mutually  exclusive,  but  recon- 
cilable. And  if,  unsatisfied  with  them  all,  the 
human  mind,  with  the  yearning  of  a  pilgrim  for  his 
distant  home,  will  still  turn  to  the  Mystery  from 
which  it  has  emerged,  seeking  so  to  fashion  it  as 
to  give  unity  to  thought  and  faith,  so  long  as  this 
is  done,  not  only  without  intolerance  or  bigotry  of 
any  kind,  but  with  the  enlightened  recognition 
that  ultimate  fixity  of  conception  is  here  unattain- 
able, and  that  each  succeeding  age  must  be  held 
free  to  fashion  the  mystery  in  accordance  with  its 
own  needs  —  then,  casting  aside  all  the  restrictions 
of  Materialism,  I  would  affirm  this  to  be  a  field  for 
the  noblest  exercise  of  what,  in  contrast  with  the 
knowing  faculties,  may  be  called  the  creative  facul- 
ties of  man." 


64     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

Close  as  are  man's  structural  relations  to  the 
lower  animals,  his  equipment  is  peculiar  to 
himself.  The  actions  of  the  lower  animals  are 
conditioned  by  sensations  and  momentary  im- 
pulses. Man,  on  the  other  hand,  is  enabled  to 
raise  himself  above  fleeting  sensations  to  the 
realm  of  ideas,  and  in  that  realm  he  finds  his 
real  life.  Similarly,  man's  will  gradually  frees 
itself  from  bondage  to  a  chain  of  causes  deter- 
mined for  it  from  without,  and  attains  to  a 
power  of  independent  self-determination  ac- 
cording to  durable  and  continuing  ends  of 
action.  This  constitutes  character,  which,  in 
Emerson's  fine  phrase,  is  the  moral  order  seen 
through  the  medium  of  an  individual  nature. 
Freedom  of  the  will  is  not,  then,  a  metaphysical 
notion,  nor  is  it  obtained  from  nature  or  seen 
in  nature.  It  is  a  development  in  the  life  of 
the  human  soul.  Freedom  and  rationality  are 
two  names  for  the  same  thing,  and  their  high- 
est development  is  the  end  of  human  life. 
This  development  is  not,  as  Locke  thought,  a 
process  arising  without  the  mind  and  acting 
upon  it,  a  passive  and  pliable  recipient.  Much 
less  is  it   one   that  could  be   induced   in  the 


WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF   MOST  WORTH?     65 

hypothetical  statue  of   Condillac  and  Bonnet. 
It  is  the  very  life  of  the  soul  itself. 

There  is  a  striking  passage  in  The  Mar- 
ble Faun  in  which  Hawthorne  suggests  the 
idea  that  the  task  of  the  sculptor  is  not,  by 
carving,  to  impress  a  figure  upon  the  marble, 
but  rather,  by  the  touch  of  genius,  to  set  free 
the  glorious  form  that  the  cold  grasp  of  the 
stone  imprisons.*  With  similar  insight,  Brown- 
ing puts  these  words  into  the  mouth  of  his 
Paracelsus : 

"  Truth  is  within  ourselves ;  it  takes  no  rise 
From  outward  things,  whate'er  you  may  believe. 
There  is  an  inmost  centre  in  us  all, 
Where  truth  abides  in  fullness ;  and  around, 
Wall  upon  wall,  the  gross  flesh  hems  it  in, 
This  perfect,  clear  perception.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  And,  to  know, 
Rather  consists  in  opening  out  a  way 
Whence  the  imprisoned  splendor  may  escape, 
Than  in  effecting  entry  for  a  bight 
Supposed  to  be  without." 

This  is  the  poetical  form  of  the  truth  that  I 
believe  is  pointed  to  by  both  philosophy  and 
science.  It  offers  us  a  sure  standing-ground 
for  our  educational  theory.     It  reveals  to  us, 


66     WHAT  KNOWLEDGE  IS  OF  MOST  WORTH? 

not  as  an  hypothesis  but  as  a  fact,  education  as 
spiritual  growth  toward  intellectual  and  moral 
perfection,  and  saves  us  from  the  peril  of  view- 
ing it  as  an  artificial  process  according  to  me- 
chanical formulas.  Finally,  it  assures  us  that 
while  no  knowledge  is  worthless,  —  for  it  all 
leads  us  back  to  the  common  cause  and  ground 
of  all,  —  yet  that  knowledge  is  of  most  worth 
which  stands  in  closest  relation  to  the  highest 
forms  of  the  activity  of  that  spirit  which  is 
created  in  the  image  of  Him  who  holds  nature 
and  man  alike  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand. 


IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 


Presidential  Address 

delivered  before  the 

Association  of  Colleges  and  Preparatory  Schools 

of  the  Middle  States  and  Maryland, 

at  Easton,  Pennsylvania,  November  29,  1895 


IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 

The  title  of  this  discussion  is  designedly 
thrown  into  the  form  of  a  question.  Its  pur- 
pose is  to  provoke,  if  possible,  a  difference  of 
opinion  —  always  a  healthier  and  more  produc- 
tive intellectual  state  than  the  dull  mediocrity 
of  agreement.  Difference  of  opinion  begets 
doubt,  doubt  begets  inquiry,  and  inquiry  event- 
ually leads  to  truth.     Virgil's  fine  line, 

Felix  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas, 

is  profoundly  true ;  but  more  fortunate  still  is 
he  who  comes  to  his  knowledge  by  the  sure 
method  of  honest  doubt. 

For  a  generation  we  have  been  doing  lip-ser- 
vice to  the  doctrine  of  evolution ;  but  only 
with  great  slowness  and  difficulty  do  old  forms 
of  speech  and  old  habits  of  mind  fit  themselves 
to  a  new  point  of  view  that  makes  so  strong  an 
69 


70  IS  THEKE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 

appeal  both  to  our  reason  and  to  our  imagina- 
tion. In  no  department  of  knowledge  is  this 
more  true  than  in  the  field  of  education.  Edu- 
cation is  essentially  a  conservative  process ;  it 
cherishes  its  time-worn  instruments  and  re- 
veres its  time-honored  standards.  The  treas- 
ures of  the  mind  are  too  precious  to  be  lightly  fl 
exposed  to  the  loss  or  harm  that  might  come  to 
them  through  change.  Yet  the  opinion  hasi 
found  lodgment  among  our  craft  that  after  all, 
and  despite  the  excellence  of  old  methods  and 
old  standards,  the  educational  theory  and  prac- 
tice of  a  given  age  or  generation  must  stand  in 
close  relation  to  its  intellectual  and  ethical 
ideals  and  to  the  material  fabric  of  its  civiliza- 
tion :  and  surely  all  three  of  these  habitually 
vary,  not  only  over  long  periods  but  in  rela 
tively  short  intervals  of  time.  It  is  a  grave 
matter  for  the  teacher  if  virtue  is  identical  with 
knowledge,  as  Socrates  taught ;  or  if  it  is  the 
result  of  habit,  as  Aristotle  held ;  or  if  it  is  the 
cunning  invention  of  rulers,  as  Mandeville  sug- 
gested ;  or  if  it  is  mere  skill  in  calculating  the 
chances  of  pleasure  and  pain,  as  Bentham  laid 
down.     It  is  important,  too,  primarily  for  the 


IS  THERE  A   NEW  EDUCATION?  71 

higher  education,  but  eventually  for  the  lower 
schools  as  well,  if  our  intellectual  ideal  is  repre- 
sented by  the  active  mind  of  a  Leibniz  or  a 
Gladstone,  with  its  immense  energy  and  broad 
range  of  interests  ;  or  if  it  is  better  typified  by 
the  narrow,  plodding  specialization  of  a  Darwin 
or  of  those  Teutonic  philologers  who  are  un- 
duly distracted  if  their  investigations  cover 
more  than  the  gerund  or  the  dative  case.  Still 
more  directly  must  our  education  depend  upon 
the  material  equipment  of  the  time.  In  this 
day  of  innumerable  printing-presses,  with  a 
power  of  production  sadly  out  of  proportion  to 
their  power  of  discrimination,  it  is  quite  incon- 
ceivable that  we  should  not  find  ourselves 
forced  to  con  anew  the  grounds  on  which  rest 
the  principles  and  methods  that  have  come 
down  to  us  from  the  age  of  manuscripts  and 
pack-saddles.  Such  a  process  of  questioning 
has  been  under  way  for  some  time  past,  and 
has  contributed  in  no  small  degree  to  that 
marvellous  enthusiasm  for  education  and  to 
that  belief  in  it,  the  evidences  of  which  are  to 
be  seen  on  every  hand. 

There   are    three   avenues   of    scientific   ap- 


72  IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 

proach  to  the  study  of  education,  and  in  each 
of  them  the  evolutionary  point  of  view  is  not 
only  illuminating  but  controlling.  These  three 
avenues  are  the  physiological,  the  psychologi- 
cal, and  the  sociological.  Their  points  of  con- 
tact are  many  and  their  inter-relations  are 
close.  Modern  psychology  has  already  given 
up  the  attempt  to  treat  mental  life  without 
reference  to  its  physical  basis ;  and  it  will 
sooner  or  later  regard  any  interpretation  as 
incomplete  that  does  not  relate  the  individual 
to  what  may  be  called  the  social  life  or  con- 
sciousness. Man's  institutional  life  is  as  much  a 
part  of  his  real  self  as  his  physical  existence  or  his 
mental  constitution.  Robinson  Crusoe  is,  in  one 
of  the  catch  phrases  of  the  day,  a  barren  ideality. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  this  point  of  view 
is  both  very  old  and  very  new.  It  is  very  old, 
for  it  was  Aristotle  himself  who  wrote,  "  Man 
is  by  nature  a  political  animal.  And  he  who 
by  nature,  and  not  by  mere  accident,  is  without 
a  state,  is  either  above  humanity  or  below  it."1 
It  is  also  very  new,  for  it  is  in  flat  contradic- 

1  The  politics  of  Aristotle,  I,  2,  Jowett's  translation  (Ox- 
ford, 1885),  p.  4. 


IS  THERE   A  NEW  EDUCATION?  73 

tion  to  the  doctrine  of  Rousseau,  "Compelled 
to  oppose  nature  or  our  social  institutions,  we 
must  choose  between  making  a  man  and  a 
citizen,  for  we  cannot  make  both  at  once  " 1  — 
the  crudeness  and  superficiality  of  which  have 
not  prevented  it  from  exercising  a  wide  and 
long-continued  influence.  Modern  philosophy 
confirms  here,  as  so  often,  the  analysis  of  Aris- 
totle ;  and  it  rejects,  as  is  becoming  customary, 
the  extreme  individualism  of  the  later  eigh- 
teenth century.  The  significance  of  this  for 
our  educational  theory  is  all-important. 

Returning  now  to  the  first  of  the  three 
pillars  on  which  the  modern  study  of  education 
rests  —  the  physiological  —  it  may  be  useful  to 
recall  briefly  what  consideration  has  been  given 
to  it  in  the  past.  All  of  the  older  culture- 
nations  laid  stress  upon  it,  and  some  of  them 
dealt  with  it  in  systematic  fashion.  But  the 
Greeks  alone  understood  the  educational  value 
of  play.  Their  great  national  games  combined 
systematic  physical  training  and  play  in  a  way 
that  we  have  not  yet  succeeded  in  equalling. 

1  Rousseau's  simile,  translated  by  W.  H.  Payne  (New 
York,  1893),  p.  6. 


74  IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 

The  ascetic  ideal  that  ruled  the  schools  of  the 
Middle  Ages  left  no  place  for  a  continuance  of 
the  Greek  practice,  and  it  was  forgotten.  We 
find  ourselves  to-day  struggling  to  imitate  it. 
In  Germany  systematic  physical  training  is 
made  much  of  in  education,  but  genuine  play 
is  not  prominent.  In  England,  on  the  contrary, 
play  has  been  found  so  successful  in  developing 
strength  and  suppleness  of  body  and  sturdy, 
independent  character  that  anything  approach- 
ing systematic,  formal  training  is  regarded  as 
almost  unnecessary.  In  this  country  the  pres- 
ent tendency  is  to  develop  both  elements,  after 
the  fashion  of  the  Greeks  ;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  the  outcome  will  be  even  more  satisfactory 
than  it  was  at  Athens  and  at  Corinth. 

But  physical  and  physiological  considera- 
tions cut  far  deeper  than  this.  They  demand 
a  hearing  when  we  have  under  discussion 
questions  of  school  hours  and  recesses,  of  pro- 
grammes and  tasks,  of  school  furniture,  of  text- 
books and  blackboards,  of  light,  heat,  and  fresh 
air.  On  all  of  these  topics  we  have  recently 
learned  much  that  has  not  yet  found  its  way 
into  our  practice.     College  faculties  and  school 


IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION?  75 

teachers,  framers  of  examination  tests,  donors 
of  laboratories  and  dormitories,  and,  most  of  all, 
architects,  are  as  a  rule  oblivious  to  the  vital 
interest  that  the  pupil  has  in  matters  of  this 
kind.  Considerations  of  tradition,  conven- 
ience, cost,  and  external  appearance  are  al- 
lowed full  swing,  and  the  growing  youth  must 
fit  the  Procrustean  bed  as  best  they  can.  The 
signs  of  mal-nutrition  and  weakness,  as  de- 
scribed, for  example,  by  Warner,  and  the  laws 
of  mental  and  physical  fatigue,  as  arrived  at 
by  such  investigations  as  those  of  Mosso  and 
of  Burgerstein,  are  about  as  familiar  to  teach- 
ers in  colleges  and  in  preparatory  schools  as  are 
the  Laws  of  Manu.  And  yet  they  affect  vi- 
tally every  young  man  or  young  woman  who 
enters  a  schoolroom  or  a  college.  No  amount 
of  thundering  eloquence  on  the  value  of  the 
ancient  classics,  no  emphasis  on  character  as 
the  sole  end  of  education,  can  make  amends 
for  our  failure  to  study  the  facts  dealing  with 
the  physical  and  physiological  elements  in  edu- 
cation, and  for  our  delay  in  applying  them. 
We  need  to  be  strongly  reminded  that  wicked- 
ness is  closely  akin  to  weakness,  and  then  to 


76  IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 

consider  the  moral  consequences  of  our  physio- 
logical ignorance.1 

The  relation  of  psychology  to  education  is 
the  one  subject  on  which  the  teacher  of  to-day 
is  supposed  to  be  informed.  Normal  schools 
without  number,  and  here  and  there  a  college, 
give  definite  instruction  in  the  subject.  Yet 
a  careful  inspection  of  the  most  popular  text- 
books in  use,  and  visits  to  some  hundreds  of 
classrooms,  have  convinced  me  that  the  results 
of  this  knowledge,  if  it  exists,  are,  in  the  field 
of  secondary  and  higher  education,  almost  nil. 
In  this  respect  the  elementary  teacher  is  far 
in  advance.  Perhaps  no  secondary  school  or 
college  in  America  can  show  teaching  to  com- 
pare, in  mastery  of  scientific  method  and  in 
technical  skill,  with  the  best  teaching  to  be 
seen  in  many  of  the  public  elementary  schools, 
particularly  in  the  Western  States.  In  con- 
sequence of  this,  we  may  safely  assume  that 
pupils  fresh  from  the  vigorous  intellectual  and 
moral  growth  of  a  well-conducted  elementary 
school,  will  turn  aside  from  the  machine  meth- 

1  Compare  "Moral  education  and  will -training,"  by  G. 
Stanley  Hall,  in  Pedagogical  Seminary,  II,  72-89. 


IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION?  77 

ods  and  dull,  uninspiring  class-exercises  of  our 
average  academy  with  disgust.  The  new  edu- 
cational life-blood  is  flowing  most  freely  and 
vigorously  in  the  veins  of  the  elementary 
teacher.  Here  and  there  a  secondary  school- 
master, and  here  and  there  a  college  president 
or  professor,  takes  a  genuine  and  intelligent 
interest  in  education  for  its  own  sake;  but 
the  vast  majority  know  nothing  of  it  and  are 
but  little  affected  by  it.  They  are  content  to 
accumulate  what  they  are  pleased  to  term  "  ex- 
perience " ;  but  their  relation  to  education  is 
just  that  of  the  motorman  on  a  trolley-car  to 
the  science  of  electricity.  They  use  it;  but 
of  its  nature,  principles,  and  processes  they 
are  profoundly  ignorant.  The  one  qualifica- 
tion most  to  be  feared  in  a  teacher,  and  the 
one  to  be  most  carefully  inquired  into,  is  this 
same  "experience"  when  it  stands  alone.  I 
am  profoundly  distrustful  of  it.  The  pure 
empiricist  never  can  have  any  genuine  experi- 
ence, any  more  than  an  animal,  because  he  is 
unable  to  interrogate  the  phenomena  that  pre- 
sent themselves  to  him,  and  hence  is  unable  to 
understand  them.     The  scientific  teacher,  the 


78  IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 

« 
theorist,  on  the   contrary,  asks  what   manner 

of  phenomena  these  are  that  are  before  him, 
what  are  their  inner  relations,  and  the  princi- 
ples on  which  they  are  based.  This,  of  course, 
is  the  first  great  step,  taken  by  all  scientific 
method,  toward  a  knowledge  of  causes.  It  is 
at  this  point  that  we  reach  the  real  reason 
for  the  need  of  an  accurate  knowledge  of 
psychology  on  the  part  of  the  teacher.  His 
dealings  in  the  schoolroom  are  primarily  with 
mental  processes  and  mental  growth.  Unless 
these  are  scientifically  studied  and  understood, 
or  —  and  this  does  not  happen  often  —  unless 
natural  psychological  insight  comes  to  the  res- 
cue of  psychological  ignorance,  the  teaching 
is  bound  to  be  mechanical ;  and  the  longer  it 
is  continued,  the  more  "  experience "  is  ac- 
quired, and  the  more  wooden  and  mechanical 
it  becomes. 

A  short  time  ago  I  was  present  at  an  exer- 
cise in  modern  history,  given  to  an  undergrad- 
uate class,  averaging  over  eighteen  years  of 
age,  in  one  of  our  Eastern  colleges.  The 
text-book  in  the  hands  of  the  students  was 
of  a  very  elementary  character,  and  is  much 


IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION?  79 

used  in  public  high  schools,  both  East  and 
West.  The  teacher  was  a  college  graduate, 
and  had  held  his  position  for  several  years. 
These  years  had  been  years  of  "experience," 
and  would  have  been  strongly  urged  as  an 
important  qualification  had  his  name  been 
under  consideration  for  promotion  or  for  trans- 
fer to  another  institution.  Yet  the  entire 
hour  that  I  spent  in  his  class  was  given  up 
to  the  dictation  of  an  abstract  of  the  text- 
book. This,  he  told  me,  was  his  usual  method. 
The  students  took  down  the  dictation,  word 
for  word,  in  a  dull,  listless  way,  and  gave  a 
sigh  of  mingled  despair  and  relief  when  it 
came  to  an  end.  This  process  went  on  sev- 
eral times  weekly  for  either  one  or  two  years. 
I  ascertained  from  the  instructor  that  he  called 
it  "hammering  the  facts  home."  He  is,  for 
aught  I  know,  "  hammering  "  yet,  and  now  has 
some  additional  "  experience  "  to  his  credit.  So 
have  his  pupils. 

Not  long  ago  a  prominent  publishing  firm 
issued  a  widely  advertised  text-book  on  a 
subject  much  taught  nowadays.  For  the  pur- 
poses of  real  teaching,  of  arousing  interest  and 


80  IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 

enthusiasm  in  the  subject,  and  of  stimulating 
the  student  to  pursue  it  farther,  to  reflect  upon 
it,  and  to  make  its  lessons  his  own,  it  was  as 
ill-adapted  as  any  printed  matter  occupying 
the  same  number  of  pages  could  be.  As  a 
compendium  of  bare  facts  and  dates  to  be 
committed  to  memory,  and  reproduced  in  an- 
swer to  definite  questions,  it  was  clear  and 
concise.  Despite  this  fact,  the  publishers  have 
recently  issued  a  circular  commendatory  of 
the  book,  that  contains  two-score  cordial  in- 
dorsements of  it  as  a  text-book,  over  the  sig- 
natures of  as  many  high-school  and  college 
teachers.  I  interpret  that  to  mean  that  those 
two-score  teachers  lack  either  educational  intel- 
ligence or  educational  conscience  ;  perhaps  both. 
No  amount  of  psychological  learning  could 
make  it  impossible  for  the  inquirer  to  find 
cases  like  these,  and  the  hundreds  of  others 
of  which  they  are  typical,  in  the  schools  and 
colleges  ;  but  a  psychological  training  on  the 
part  of  the  teacher  would  go  far  to  diminish 
their  number.     Professor  Royce  pointed  out * 

1  "  Is  there  a  science  of  education  ?  "  in  Educational  2?e- 
view,  I,  16-25 ;  121-132. 


IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION?  81 

several  years  ago  that  what  the  teacher  has 
chiefly  to  gain  from  the  study  of  psychology 
is,  not  rules  of  procedure,  but  the  psychologi- 
cal spirit.  The  teacher,  he  adds,  should  be  a 
naturalist  and  cultivate  the  habit  of  observing 
the  mental  life  of  his  pupils  for  its  own  sake. 
In  this  he  will  follow  the  method  common  to 
all  naturalists :  "  What  is  here  in  this  live 
thing  ?  Why  does  it  move  tjius  ?  What  is  it 
doing  ?  What  feelings  does  it  appear  to  have  ? 
What  type  of  rudimentary  intelligence  is  it 
showing  ?  "  Such  questions  as  these  form  the 
habit  of  watching  minds,  and  of  watching 
them  closely.  This  habit  is  the  surest  road 
to  good  teaching,  and  its  formation  is  the 
best  service  that  psychology  can  render  to 
the  classroom.  Until  a  teacher  has  acquired 
that  habit  and  subordinated  his  schoolroom 
procedure  to  it,  he  is  not  teaching  at  all ; 
at  best  he  is  either  lecturing  or  hearing 
recitations. 

We  are  chiefly  indebted  to  the  students  and 
followers  of  Herbart  for  the  present  wide- 
spread interest  in  this  country  in  two  psycho- 
logical  doctrines   of   the   greatest    importance 


82  IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 

for  all  teaching  —  the  doctrine  of  appercep- 
tion and  the  doctrine  of  interest.  The  former 
has  to  do  with  mental  assimilation,  the  latter 
with  the  building  of  character  and  ideals.  I 
know  of  no  more  fruitful  field  for  the  appli- 
cation of  both  of  these  than  the  freshman 
year  of  the  college  course.  My  observation 
has  taught  me  that  the  work  of  the  freshman 
class  in  college  is,  as  a  rule,  very  ineffective. 
College  teachers  who  admit  this  fact  are  in 
the  habit  of  accounting  for  it  by  alleging  the 
difficulty  of  welding  into  a  homogeneous  mass 
the  new  students  of  different  advantages, 
training,  and  mental  habits.  The  task  is 
more  than  difficult ;  it  is  impossible,  and 
ought  never  to  be  attempted,  much  less  en- 
couraged. That  it  goes  on  year  after  year 
in  a  hundred  colleges  is  due  to  the  strait- 
jacket  system  of  class  teaching  by  which  we 
defy  the  rules  of  God  and  man  to  the  glory 
of  what,  in  our  professional  cant,  we  call 
"sound  education."  If  we  could  secure  a 
hearing  for  the  doctrine  of  apperception,  all 
this  would  be  changed.  We  should  then  recog- 
nize   in    our   practice   as  we  do  in   our   faith 


IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION?  83 

that  the  mind  is  not  a  passive  recipient  of 
the  impressions  that  reach  it ;  that  it  reacts 
upon  them,  colors  them,  and  makes  them  a 
part  of  itself  in  accordance  with  the  ten- 
dency, the  point  of  view,  and  the  possessions 
that  it  already  has.  This  tendency,  this  point 
of  view,  and  these  possessions  differ  in  the 
case  of  every  individual.  Instead  of  over- 
looking or  seeking  to  annul  these  differences, 
we  should  first  understand  them  and  then 
base  our  teaching  upon  them.  If  the  first 
month  of  freshman  year  were  spent  in  care- 
fully ascertaining  the  stage  of  development, 
in  power  and  acquirement,  that  each  pupil 
had  reached,  it  would  be  possible  so  to  order 
and  adjust  the  work  of  the  year  as  to  make 
it  useful  and  educative.  I  have  known  case 
after  case  in  which  the  opposite  policy  of 
treating  all  upon  one  plane,  and  making  the 
same  demands  upon  aH,  has  made  a  college 
course  a  source  of  positive  harm  ;  it  also 
accounts,  in  greater  measure  than  we  are 
aware  of,  for  the  large  proportion  of  students 
who  fall  away  at  the  end  of  the  freshman 
and  sophomore  years.     Yet  so  long  as  college 


84  IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 

teachers  know  so  little  psychology  as  to  cling 
to  the  old  dogma  of  formal  discipline,  and 
continue  to  pound  away  on  so  much  mathe- 
matics to  train  the  reasoning  powers  and  so 
much  Greek  grammar  to  train  something  else, 
regardless  of  the  content  of  the  instruction 
and  of  all  other  considerations — just  so  long 
will  one  mind  be  lost  or  injured  for  every 
one  that  is  saved  or  benefited.  As  Colonel 
Parker  has  so  forcibly  said,  "We  dwell  on 
those  who  have  been  saved  by  our  older 
methods,  but  who  has  counted  the  lost  ?  " 

The  situation  is  not  very  different  with  re- 
spect to  the  doctrine  of  interest.  We  con- 
tinually complain  that  valuable  and  necessary 
instruction  given  in  school  and  in  college  is  for- 
gotten, that  it  is  not  retained,  not  extended,  and 
not  applied.  The  fault  lies  partly,  no  doubt, 
with  the  pupils,  but  largely  with  ourselves. 
We  have  still  to  learn  what  interest  means, 
how  it  is  changed  from  indirect  to  direct,  and 
how  it  is  built  up  into  a  permanent  element 
of  character.  We  are  inexperienced  in  seeking 
out  and  seizing  upon  the  present  and  tempo- 
rary interests  of    the   student,   and   in  using 


IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION?  85 

them  as  a  factor  in  training.  It  is  a  com- 
mon thing  to  hear  it  said  that  since  life  is 
full  of  obstacles  and  character  is  strength- 
ened by  overcoming  them,  so  the  school  and 
college  course  should  not  hesitate  to  compel 
students  to  do  distasteful  and  difficult  things 
simply  because  they  are  distasteful  and  diffi- 
cult. I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  I  believe 
that  doctrine  to  be  profoundly  immoral  and 
its  consequences  calamitous.  But,  it  is  an- 
swered, you  certainly  would  not  trust  to  a 
student's  whims  and  allow  him  to  do  or  not 
do  as  he  pleases.  Certainly  not ;  and  that  is 
not  the  alternative.  The  proper  and  scien- 
tific course  is  to  search  for  the  pupil's  em- 
pirical and  natural  interests,  and  to  build 
upon  them.  This  is  not  always  easy;  it  re- 
quires knowledge,  patience,  and  skill.  It  is 
far  easier  to  treat  the  entire  class  alike  and 
to  drive  them  over  the  hurdles  set  by  a  sin- 
gle required  course  of  study,  in  the  vain 
hope  that  the  weak  and  timid  will  not  be 
injured  as  much  as  the  strong  and  confident 
will  be  benefited,  and  that  somehow  or  other 
the  algebraic  sum  of  the  results  of  the  process 


86  IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 

will  bear  a  positive  sign.  I  earnestly  com- 
mend to  every  teacher  the  study  of  these 
two  principles,  apperception  and  interest.  I 
do  so  in  the  firm  belief  that  the  practical 
result  of  that  study  would  be  an  immense 
uplifting  of  the  teaching  efficiency  of  every 
educational  institution  in  the  United  States. 
What,  for  lack  of  a  better  term,  I  call  the 
sociological  aspect  of  education  is,  in  many 
respects,  the  most  important  of  all.  Under 
this  head  are  to  be  put  such  questions  as  those 
that  deal  with  the  aim  and  limits  of  education, 
its  relation  to  the  state,  its  organization  and 
administration,  and  the  course  of  study  to  be 
pursued.  I  can  now  refer  to  but  a  single  one  of 
these  topics.  Dr.  Harris,  in  the  opening  para- 
graphs of  his  well-known  report  on  the  correla- 
tion of  studies,  dealt  a  final  blow  to  the  idea 
that  the  course  of  study  is  to  be  settled  either 
by  tradition  or  by  conditions  wholly  psycho- 
logical. "  The  game  of  chess,"  he  points  out,1 
"  would  furnish  a  good  course  of  study  for  the 
discipline  of  the  powers  of  attention  and  calcu- 

1  Beport  of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  on  elementary  edu- 
cation (New  York,  1895),  p.  42. 


IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION?  87 

lation  of  abstract  combinations,  but  it  would 
give  its  possessor  little  or  no  knowledge  of 
man  or  nature.  .  .  .  Psychology  of  both 
kinds,  physiological  and  introspective,  can  hold 
only  a  subordinate  place  in  the  settlement  of 
questions  relating  to  the  correlation  of  stud- 
ies." He  also  shows  that  the  chief  considera- 
tion to  which  all  others  are  to  be  subordinated 
is  the  "requirement  of  the  civilization  into 
which  the  child  is  born,  as  determining  not 
only  what  he  shall  study  in  school,  but  what 
habits  and  customs  he  shall  be  taught  in  the 
family  before  the  school  age  arrives ;  as  well  as 
that  he  shall  acquire  a  skilled  acquaintance  with 
some  one  of  a  definite  series  of  trades,  profes- 
sions, or  vocations  in  the  years  that  follow 
school ;  and,  furthermore,  that  this  question  of 
the  relation  of  the  pupil  to  his  civilization  de- 
termines what  political  duties  he  shall  assume 
and  what  religious  faith  or  spiritual  aspirations 
shall  be  adopted  for  the  conduct  of  his  life."1 

It  is  at  this  point  that  the  study  of  education 
from   the    sociological   point   of    view  begins. 

1  Report  of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  on  elementary  edu- 
cation (New  York,  1895),  p.  41. 


88  IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 

Instead  of  forcing  the  course  of  study  to  suit 
the  necessities  of  some  preconceived  system 
of  educational  organization,  it  should  deter- 
mine and  control  that  organization  absolutely. 
Were  this  done,  the  troubles  of  the  secondary 
school,  the  Cinderella  of  our  educational  system, 
would  disappear.  Just  at  present  it  is  jammed 
into  the  space  left  between  the  elementary 
school  and  the  college,  without  any  rational  and 
ordered  relation  to  either.  The  ever-present 
problem  of  college  entrance  is  purely  artificial, 
and  has  no  business  to  exist  at  all.  We  have 
ingeniously  created  it,  and  are  much  less  in- 
geniously trying  to  solve  it.  Leibniz  might 
have  said  that  mental  development,  as  well  as 
nature,  never  makes  leaps.  It  is  constant  and 
continuous.  The  idea  that  there  is  a  great  gulf 
fixed  between  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
years,  or  between  the  seventeenth  and  eigh- 
teenth, that  nothing  but  a  college  entrance  ex- 
amination can  bridge,  is  a  mere  superstition  that 
not  even  age  can  make  respectable.  It  ought  to 
be  as  easy  and  natural  for  the  student  to  pass 
from  the  secondary  school  to  the  college  as  it  is 
for  him  to  pass  from  one  class  to  another  in  the 


IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION?  89 

school  or  in  the  college.  In  like  fashion,  the 
work  and  methods  of  the  one  ought  to  lead 
easily  and  gradually  to  those  of  the  other.  That 
they  do  not  do  so  in  the  educational  systems  of 
France  and  Germany  is  one  of  the  main  defects 
of  those  systems.  The  American  college  as  a 
school  of  broad  and  liberal  education,  a  place 
where  studies  are  carried  on  with  reference  to 
their  general  and  more  far-reaching  relations, 
is  indispensable  for  the  very  reason  that  it  per- 
mits and  encourages  the  expansion  and  devel- 
opment of  school  work  in  the  widest  possible 
way,  before  the  narrow  specialization  of  the 
university  is  entered  upon.  Happily,  there  are 
in  the  United  States  no  artificial  obstacles  in- 
terposed between  the  college  and  the  univer- 
sity. We  make  it  very  easy  to  pass  from  the 
one  to  the  other ;  the  custom  is  to  accept  any 
college  degree  for  just  what  it  means.  We 
make  it  equally  easy  to  pass  from  one  grade  or 
class  to  another  and  from  elementary  school  to 
secondary  school,  the  presumption  always  being 
that  the  pupils  are  ready  and  competent  to  go 
forward.  The  barrier  between  secondary  school 
and  college  is  the  only  one  that  we  insist  upon 


90  IS  THEKE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 

retaining.  The  intending  collegian  alone  is 
required  to  run  the  gantlet  of  college  pro- 
fessors and  tutors,  who,  in  utter  ignorance  of 
his  character,  training,  and  acquirements, 
bruise  him  for  hours  with  such  knotty  ques- 
tions as  their  fancy  may  suggest.  In  the 
interest  of  an  increased  college  attendance,  not 
to  mention  that  of  a  sounder  educational 
theory,  this  practice  ought  to  be  stopped  and 
the  formal  tests  at  entrance  reduced  to  a 
minimum. 

Public  opinion  itself,  despite  the  protests  of 
the  pundits  of  the  faculties,  is  forcing  an  ex- 
tension of  the  course  of  study.  It  is  one  of 
the  best  bits  of  grim  humor  that  our  American 
practice,  inherited  from  the  mother  country, 
affords,  that  the  designation  "liberal"  has 
come  to  be  claimed  as  the  sole  prerogative  of  a 
very  narrow  and  technical  course  of  study  that 
was  invented  for  a  very  narrow  and  technical 
purpose,  and  that  has  been  very  imperfectly 
liberalized  in  the  intervening  centuries.  It 
ought  to  soften  somewhat  the  asperity  of 
teachers  of  Greek  to  remember  that  the  very 
arguments  by  which  they  are  in  the  habit  of 


IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION?  91 

resisting  the  inroads  of  the  modern  languages, 
the  natural  sciences,  and  economics,  were  used 
not  so  many  hundreds  of  years  ago  to  keep 
Greek  itself  from  edging  its  way  into  the  cur- 
riculum at  all.  Paulsen  is  indubitably  right  in 
his  insistence  upon  the  fact  that  the  modern 
world  has  developed  a  culture  of  its  own, 
which,  while  an  outgrowth  of  the  culture  of 
antiquity,  is  quite  distinct  from  it.  It  is  to 
this  modern  culture  that  our  education  must 
lead.  The  first  question  to  be  asked  of  any 
course  of  study  is,  Does  it  lead  to  a  knowledge 
of  our  contemporary  civilization  ?  If  not,  it  is 
neither  efficient  nor  liberal. 

In  society  as  it  exists  to-day  the  dominant 
note,  running  through  all  of  our  struggles  and 
problems,  is  economic, —  what  the  old  Greeks 
might  have  called  political.  Yet  it  is  a  con- 
stant fight  to  get  any  proper  teaching  from  the 
economic  and  social  point  of  view  put  before 
high-school  and  college  students.  They  are 
considered  too  young  or  too  immature  to  study 
such  recondite  subjects,  although  the  nice  dis- 
tinctions between  the  Greek  moods  and  tenses 
and  the  principles  of  conic  sections,  with  their 


92  IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 

appeal  to  the  highly  trained  mathematical 
imagination,  are  their  daily  food.  As  a  result, 
thousands  of  young  men  and  young  women, 
who  have  neither  the  time,  the  money,  nor  the 
desire  for  a  university  career,  are  sent  forth 
from  the  schools  either  in  profound  ignorance 
of  the  economic  basis  of  modern  society,  or 
with  only  the  most  superficial  and  misleading 
knowledge  of  it.  The  indefensibleness  of  this 
policy,  even  from  the  most  practical  point  of 
view,  is  apparent  when  we  bear  in  mind  that  in 
this  country  we  are  in  the  habit  of  submitting 
questions,  primarily  economic  in  character, 
every  two  or  four  years  to  the  judgment  and 
votes  of  what  is  substantially  an  untutored 
mob.  If  practical  politics  only  dealt  with 
chemistry  as  well  as  with  economics,  we  could, 
by  the  same  short  and  easy  method,  come  to 
some  definite  and  authoritative  conclusion  con- 
cerning the  atomic  theory  and  learn  the  real 
facts  regarding  helium.  But  since  the  eco- 
nomic facts,  and  not  the  chemical  or  linguistic 
facts,  are  the  ones  to  be  bound  up  most  closely 
with  our  public  and  private  life,  they  should, 
on  that  very  account,  be  strongly  represented 


IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION?  93 

in  every  curriculum.  We  can  leave  questions 
as  to  the  undulatory  theory  of  light  and  as  to 
Grimm's  and  Verne  r's  laws  to  the  specialists ; 
but  we  may  not  do  the  same  thing  with  ques- 
tions as  to  production  and  exchange,  as  to 
monetary  policy  and  taxation.  The  course 
of  study  is  not  liberal,  in  this  century,  that 
does  not  recognize  these  facts  and  empha- 
size economics  as  it  deserves.  I  cite  but  this 
one  instance  of  conflict  between  the  inherited 
and  the  scientifically  constructed  course  of 
study.  The  argument  and  its  illustration 
might  be  much  extended. 

I  have  now  indicated  how  I  should  answer 
my  own  question,  and  have  briefly  pointed  out 
typical  grounds  on  which  that  answer  rests. 
There  remains  the  ungracious  duty  of  adding 
a  word  regarding  the  attitude  of  college  facul- 
ties and  schoolmasters  toward  the  scientific 
study  of  education.  The  recklessness  with 
which  the  man  of  letters,  sometimes  the  college 
president,  and  now  and  then  even  the  more 
canny  college  professor,  will  rush  into  the 
public  discussion  of  matters  of  education  con- 
cerning which  he  has  no  knowledge  whatever, 


94  IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION? 

and  to  which,  he  has  never  given  a  half 
hour's  connected  thought,  is  appalling.  Opin- 
ion serves  for  information,  and  prejudice 
usurps  the  place  of  principle.  The  popular 
journals  and  the  printed  proceedings  of  educa- 
tional associations  teem  with  perfectly  prepos- 
terous contributions  bearing  the  signatures  of 
worthy  and  distinguished  men,  who  would  not 
dream  of  writing  dogmatically  upon  a  physical, 
a  biological,  or  a  linguistic  problem.  For  some 
recondite  reason  they  face  the  equally  difficult 
and  unfamiliar  problems  of  education  without 
a  tremor.  The  effect  is  bad  enough  on  the 
colleges  and  schools  themselves,  but  it  is  far 
worse  on  the  public  generally,  who  are  thus 
led  off  to  the  worship  of  false  gods.  Even  in 
the  largest  American  institutions,  where  most 
is  at  stake,  the  men  who  give  any  conscientious 
and  prolonged  study  to  education  itself,  as 
distinct  from  the  department  of  knowledge  in 
which  their  direct  work  lies,  can  be  counted 
upon  the  fingers  of  one  hand.  As  a  conse- 
quence, many  college  faculties  are  no  better 
qualified  to  decree  courses  of  study  and  condi- 
tions of  admission  than  they  are  to  adopt  a 


IS  THERE  A  NEW  EDUCATION?  95 

system  of  ventilation  or  of  electric  lighting. 
In  time,  doubtless,  this  will  be  recognized,  and 
in  the  former  case,  as  in  the  latter,  the  faculties 
will  submit  to  be  guided  by  specialists  who  do 
know.  That  will  never  come  to  pass,  however, 
until  school  and  college  teachers  see  clearly 
that  scholarship  is  one  thing  and  knowledge 
of  the  educational  process  quite  another;  that 
long  service  in  a  school  or  college  is  almost 
as  compatible  with  ignorance  of  education, 
scientifically  considered,  as  long  residence  in 
a  dwelling  is  compatible  with  ignorance  of  ar- 
chitecture and  carpentry. 

Dr.  Johnson's  acumen  was  equal  to  drawing 
a  distinction  between  the  new  as  the  hitherto 
non-existent,  the  new  as  the  comparatively  re- 
cent, and  the  new  as  the  hitherto  unfamiliar. 
In  each  and  all  of  these  senses  of  the  word,  I 
am  confident  that  there  is  a  new  education. 


DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION 


An  Address 

delivered  before  the 

National  Educational  Association 

at  Buffalo,  New  York,  July  7,  1896 


DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION 

Philosophers,  poets,  and  sometimes  men  of 
science,  are  fond  of  speculating  on  an  answer 
to  the  question,  Whither  are  we  tending?  But 
more  personal  matters  and  more  immediate  in- 
terests detain  the  attention  of  the  vast  majority 
of  mankind.  The  mere  question  of  absolute 
physical  direction,  to  say  nothing  of  the  ten- 
dencies of  institutions  and  ideals,  lies  far  be- 
yond the  range  of  vision  of  the  average  man. 
The  passenger  in  a  railway  train  moving  west 
may  walk  leisurely  eastward,  within  the  limits 
of  the  train,  and  feel  certain  of  his  direction 
and  speed.  But  the  train  travelling  westward, 
forty  miles  an  hour,  is  on  the  surface  of  a 
planet  that  revolves  on  its  axis  from  west  to 
east  with  a  velocity  of  a  thousand  miles  an 
hour.  More  than  this,  the  earth  is  also  plung- 
ing forward  in  space,  in  its  orbit  about  the 
99 


100  DEMOCBACY  AND  EDUCATION 

sun,  at  the  fearful  rate  of  more  than  1100 
miles  per  minute ;  while  as  a  member  of  the 
solar  system  it  drifts  rapidly  with  its  fellows 
toward  a  distant  point  in  the  constellation  ' 
Hercules.  Perhaps  the  whole  sidereal  system, 
the  entire  cosmos  even,  has  yet  other  motions 
of  its  own.  How  hopeless,  then,  is  it  to  at- 
tempt to  trace  the  exact  path,  judged  by  an 
absolute  standard,  of  a  body  moving  on  the 
earth's  surface  !  The  very  conception  staggers 
us,  and  our  imaginations  fall  back  helpless. 

Nor  is  it  otherwise  with  the  directions  and 
tendencies  of  things  intellectual  and  institu- 
tional. The  Laudator  temporis  acti  is  con- 
vinced that  civilization  is  just  now  on  a  down- 
ward grade.  The  old  order  has  changed  and 
given  place  to  a  new ;  and  the  new  order  seems 
to  him  to  lack  something  of  the  robustness, 
the  idealism,  the  valor,  of  the  old.  His  an- 
tagonist, fresh  from  contemplating  the  abstract 
rights  of  man  as  depicted  by  modern  political 
philosophers,  sees  hope  and  promise  only  in 
the  future ;  to  such  an  observer  the  past  is  a 
record  of  folly,  imperfection,  and  crime.  The 
sane  man  may  be  forgiven  if  at  times  he  fails 


DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION  101 

to  listen  with  patience  to  either  advocate.  His 
sanity  deserts  him,  however,  if  he  attempts  to 
take  refuge  in  cynicism  and  pessimism.  While 
we  may  not  hope  to  grasp  fully  the  significance 
of  movements  of  which  we  ourselves  are  a  part, 
we  can  nevertheless  study  them,  trace  their 
beginnings,  and  measure  their  present  effects. 
Such  an  attitude,  hopeful  yet  cautious,  leads 
to  the  only  point  of  view  which  is  at  once 
scientific  and  philosophical. 

However  difficult  it  may  be  to  estimate  pres- 
ent tendencies  with  any  precision  or  authority, 
there  is  a  widespread  instinctive  feeling  among 
thoughtful  men,  as  Mr.  Kidd  has  pointed  out 
in  the  first  pages  of  his  Social  Evolution,  that 
a  definite  stage  in  the  evolution  of  our  civiliza- 
tion is  drawing  to  a  close  and  that  we  are  face 
to  face  with  a  new  era.  The  history  of  the 
nineteenth  century  lends  color  to  the  sugges- 
tion that  the  new  era  has  already  begun.  The 
evidence  for  this  is  drawn  from  the  records  of 
material  advance,  of  scientific  progress,  and  of 
political  development. 

The  material  advances  made  since  the  pres- 
ent  century   opened   are   more  numerous  and 


102  DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION 

more  striking  than  the  sum  total  of  those  that 
all  previous  history  records.  We  find  it  dim- 
cult  even  to  imagine  the  world  of  our  grand- 
fathers, and  almost  impossible  to  appreciate 
or  understand  it.  Without  the  factory,  with- 
out the  manifold  products  and  applications  of 
steam  and  electricity,  without  even  the  news- 
paper and  the  sulphur  match,  the  details  of 
our  daily  life  would  be  strangely  different. 
In  our  time  wholly  new  mechanical  and  eco- 
nomic forces  are  actively  at  work,  and  have 
already  changed  the  appearance  of  the  earth's 
surface.  What  another  hundred  years  may 
bring  forth  no  one  dares  to  predict. 

The  scientific  progress  of  the  century  is  no 
less  marvellous  and  no  less  revolutionary  in  its 
effects  than  the  material  advance.  The  neb- 
ular hypothesis,  once  the  speculative  dream 
of  a  few  mathematicians  and  philosophers,  is 
now  a  scientific  commonplace.  The  geology 
of  Lyell,  the  astronomy  of  Herschel,  the  biol- 
ogy of  von  Baer,  of  Darwin,  and  of  Huxley, 
the  physiology  of  Miiller,  the  physics  of  Helm- 
holtz  and  of  Roentgen,  are  already  part  of  the 
common  knowledge  of  all  educated  men.     To 


DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION  103 

us  the  world  and  its  constitution  present  an 
appearance  very  different  from  that  which  was 
familiar  to  our  ancestors. 

But  most  striking  and  impressive  of  all  move- 
ments of  the  century  is  the  political  develop- 
ment toward  the  form  of  government  known 
as  democracy.  Steadily  and  doggedly  through- 
out the  ten  decades  the  movement  toward  de- 
mocracy has  gone  its  conquering  way.  When 
the  century  opened  democracy  was  a  chimera. 
It  had  been  attempted  in  Greece  and  Rome 
and  again  in  the  Middle  Ages ;  and  the  reflect- 
ing portion  of  mankind  believed  it  to  be  a 
failure.  Whatever  its  possibilities  in  a  small 
and  homogeneous  community,  it  was  felt  to 
be  wholly  inapplicable  to  large  states.  The 
contention  that  government  could  be  carried 
on  by  what  Mill  called  collective  mediocrity 
rather  than  by  the  intelligent  few,  was  felt 
to  be  preposterous.  The  horrible  spectre 
of  the  French  Revolution  was  fresh  in  the 
minds  of  men.  The  United  States,  hardly 
risen  from  their  cradle,  were  regarded  by  the 
statesmen  of  Europe  with  a  curiosity,  partly 
amused,  partly  disdainful.     Germany  was  gov- 


104     DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION 

erned  by  an  absolute  monarch,  the  grand- 
nephew  of  the  great  Frederick  himself.  In 
England  a  constitutional  oligarchy,  with  Pitt 
at  its  head,  was  firmly  intrenched  in  power. 
The  Napoleonic  reaction  was  in  full  swing  in 
France.  How  different  will  be  the  spectacle 
when  the  twentieth  century  opens  !  In  Great 
Britain  one  far-reaching  reform  after  another 
has  left  standing  only  the  shell  of  oligarchy; 
the  spirit  and  support  of  British  civilization 
are  democratic.  Despite  the  influence  of  Bis- 
marck and  the  two  Williams,  great  progress 
is  being  made  toward  the  democratization  of 
Germany.  France,  after  a  period  of  unex- 
ampled trouble  and  unrest,  has  founded  a  suc- 
cessful and  apparently  stable  republic.  The 
United  States  have  disappointed  every  foe  and 
falsified  the  predictions  of  every  hostile  critic. 
The  governmental  framework  constructed  by 
the  fathers  for  less  than  four  millions  of  people, 
scattered  along  a  narrow  strip  of  seaboard,  has 
expanded  easily  to  meet  the  needs  of  a  diverse 
population  twenty  times  as  large,  gathered  into 
great  cities  and  distributed  over  an  empire  of 
seacoast,  mountain,  plain,  and  forest.     It  has 


DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION     105 

withstood  the  shock  of  the  greatest  civil  war 
of  all  time,  fought  by  men  of  high  intelligence 
and  determined  convictions.  It  has  permitted 
the  development  and  expansion  of  a  civili- 
zation in  which  there  is  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity for  all,  and  where  the  highest  civil  and 
military  honors  have  been  thrust  upon  the 
children  of  the  plain  people  by  their  grateful 
fellow-citizens. 

So  significant  has  this  phenomenon  of  de- 
mocracy become,  so  widespread  is  its  influence, 
and  so  dominating  are  its  ideals,  that  we  have 
rightly  begun  to  study  it  both  with  the  im- 
partial eye  of  the  historian  and  by  the  ana- 
lytic method  of  the  scientist.  The  literature 
of  democracy  for  the  past  half  century  is  ex- 
tremely important ;  and  Tocqueville,  Bage- 
hot,  Scherer,  Carlyle,  Maine,  Bryce,  and  Lecky 
are  but  a  few  of  the  great  names  that  have 
contributed  to  it.  Through  all  the  pages  of 
these  writers  runs  an  expression  of  the  con- 
viction that  the  stream  of  tendency  toward 
democracy  can  neither  be  turned  back  nor 
permanently  checked.  Some  of  these  students 
of   democracy  are  its   enthusiastic    advocates, 


106  DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION 

others   are  its   hostile   critics  :    all  alike  seem 
to  resign  themselves  to  it. 

The  process  of  substituting  this  new  social 
and  political  system  for  an  older  one  has  not 
been  uninterrupted  or  untroubled,  nor  has  it 
given  perfect  satisfaction.  As  the  political 
pendulum  has  continued  to  swing  through  a 
wide  but  diminishing  arc,  the  cries  have 
been  loud  and  constant  that  injustice  and 
favoritism  have  not  been  suppressed,  that  all 
are  not  equally  prosperous,  and  that  not  even 
democracy  is  a  cure  for  all  our  distress  and 
dissatisfaction.  Much  of  this  is  no  doubt  due 
to  the  tendency  in  all  stages  of  history,  spoken 
of  by  Burke,  to  ascribe  to  prevailing  forms 
of  government  ills  that  in  reality  flow  from 
the  constitution  of  human  nature.  But  in 
part  at  least  —  in  how  great  part  perhaps  we 
fail  to  recognize  —  it  is  due  to  the  imperfect 
and  halting  application  of  our  democratic  ideals 
and  the  very  partial  acceptance  of  our  dem- 
ocratic responsibilities.  The  platitudes  of 
democracy  are  readily  accepted  by  the  crowd  ; 
the  full  depth  of  its  principles  is  far  from  being 
generally  understood.     It  is  easy  to  cry  "  Lib- 


DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION     107 

erty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity,"  and  to  carve 
the  words  in  letters  of  stone  upon  public 
buildings  and  public  monuments.  It  is  not 
so  easy  to  answer  the  query  whether,  in  truth, 
unrestricted  liberty  and  perfect  equality  are 
at  all  compatible.  For  it  has  been  pointed 
out  that  liberty  leads  directly  to  inequality, 
based  upon  the  natural  differences  of  capacity 
and  application  among  men.  Equality,  on 
the  other  hand,  in  any  economic  sense,  is  at- 
tainable only  by  the  suppression  in  some 
degree  of  liberty,  in  order  that,  directly  or  in- 
directly, the  strong  arm  of  the  state  may  be 
able  to  hold  back  the  precocious  and  to  push 
forward  the  sluggish.  Obviously  there  is  food 
for  thought  in  this,  —  thought  that  may  serve 
to  check  the  rhetorical  exuberance  of  the  en- 
thusiast, and  lead  him  to  ask  whether  we  yet 
fully  grasp  what  democracy  means. 

Democracy  is,  as  I  have  said,  a  movement 
so  novel  and  so  sweeping,  that  we  have 
not  yet  had  time  to  compare  it  closely,  in 
all  its  phases,  with  monarchy  and  oligarchy. 
The  advantages  of  those  forms  of  political 
organization  were  manifest  when  society  was 


108  DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION 

young  and  man's  institutional  life  yet  undevel- 
oped. As  time  went  on,  the  weaknesses  of 
such  forms  of  government  became  apparent. 
The  plunge  into  democracy  was  made,  and  we 
have  usually  gone  no  further  than  to  contrast 
its  blessings  with  what  we  know  of  the  op- 
pression and  iniquity  that  resulted  from  king- 
ship and  oligarchy  in  the  early  modern  period. 
We  must,  however,  go  further  than  this,  and 
gain  a  truer  and  deeper  insight  into  the  insti- 
tutional life  of  which  we  are  a  part. 

It  is  just  here  that  we  find  evidence  of  the 
close  relations  that  exist  between  democracy 
and  education.  So  long  as  the  direction  of 
man's  institutional  life  was  in  the  hands  of  one 
or  the  few,  the  need  for  a  wide  diffusion  of 
political  intelligence  was  not  strongly  felt. 
The  divine  right  of  kings  found  its  correlative 
in  the  diabolical  ignorance  of  the  masses. 
There  was  no  educational  ideal,  resting  upon  a 
social  and  political  necessity,  that  was  broad 
enough  to  include  the  whole  people.  But  the 
rapid  widening  of  the  basis  of  sovereignty  has 
changed  all  that.  No  deeper  conviction  per- 
vades the  people  of  the  United  States  and  of 


DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION     109 

France,  who  are  the  most  aggressive  exponents 
of  democracy,  than  that  the  preservation  of 
liberty  under  the  law,  and  of  the  institutions 
that  are  our  precious  possession  and  proud 
heritage,  depends  upon  the  intelligence  of  the 
whole  people.  It  is  on  this  unshakable  foun- 
dation that  the  argument  for  public  education 
at  public  expense  really  rests. 

It  was  not  by  accident  that  the  Greek  philos- 
ophers made  their  contributions  to  educational 
theory  in  treatises  on  the  nature  and  functions 
of  the  state.  Both  Plato  and  Aristotle  had 
a  deep  insight  into  the  meaning  of  man's  social 
and  institutional  life.  To  live  together  with 
one's  fellows  in  a  community  involves  fitness 
so  to  live.  This  fitness,  in  turn,  implies  disci- 
pline, instruction,  training ;  that  is,  education. 
The  highest  type  of  individual  life  is  found  in 
community  life.  Ethics  passes  into  or  includes 
politics,  and  the  education  of  the  individual  is 
education  for  the  state.  The  educated  Greek 
at  the  height  of  his  country's  development  was 
taught  to  regard  participation  in  the  public 
service  alike  as  a  duty  and  a  privilege.  The 
well-being   of   the  community  was   constantly 


110  DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION 

before  him  as  an  ideal  of  personal  conduct. 
To  depart  from  that  point  of  view  is  to  entail 
the  gravest  consequences.  That  a  large  pro- 
portion of  our  people,  and  among  their  number 
some  of  the  most  highly  trained,  have  departed 
from  it,  needs  no  proof. 

Failure  to  understand  the  political  life  of  a 
democratic  state  and  failure  to  participate  fully 
in  it,  lead  directly  to  false  views  of  the  state 
and  its  relations  to  the  individual  citizen.  In- 
stead of  being  regarded  as  the  sum  total  of 
the  citizens  who  compose  it,  the  state  is,  in 
thought  at  least,  then  regarded  as  an  artificial 
creation,  the  plaything  of  so-called  politicians 
and  wire-pullers.  This  view,  that  the  individual 
and  the  state  are  somehow  independent  each  of 
the  other,  is  not  without  support  in  modern 
political  philosophy,  but  it  is  a  crude  and 
superficial  view.  It  gives  rise  to  those  fal- 
lacies that  regard  the  state  either  as  a  tyrant 
to  be  resisted  or  as  a  benefactor  to  be  courted. 
No  democracy  can  endure  permanently  on 
either  basis.  The  state  is  the  completion  of 
the  life  of  the  individual,  and  without  it  he 
would  not  wholly  live.     To  inculcate  that  doc- 


DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION  111 

trine  should  be  an  aim  of  all  education  in  a 
democracy.  To  live  up  to  it  should  be  the 
ideal  of  the  nation's  educated  men. 

Impossible  in  theory  as  the  separation  of  the 
state  from  the  individuals  who  compose  it 
seems,  yet  in  practice  it  is  found  to  exist. 
This  is  true  in  the  United  States,  and  in  some 
localities  more  than  others.  Our  constitutional 
system,  elaborately  adjusted  so  that  each  in- 
dividual's choice  may  count  in  the  ascertain- 
ment of  the  common  will,  now  shelters  a 
system  of  party  organization  and  of  political 
practice,  undreamt  of  by  the  fathers,  that 
effectually  reduces  our  theoretical  democracy 
to  an  oligarchy,  and  that  oligarchy  by  no 
means  an  aristocracy.  With  here  and  there  an 
exception,  the  educated  men  of  the  country 
hold  themselves  aloof — or  are  held  aloof  — 
from  participation  in  what  is  called  practical 
politics.  That  field  of  activity  which  should 
attract  the  highest  intelligence  of  the  nation 
too  often  repels  it.  When  a  man  of  the  most 
highly  trained  powers  engages  in  political  life, 
he  becomes  an  object  of  curiosity  and  comment. 
If  he  despises  the  petty  arts  and  chicaneries 


112     DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION 

of  the  demagogue  he  becomes  "unpopular.5* 
After  a  brief  interval  he  passes  off  the  public 
stage  without  even  a  perfunctory  recognition 
of  his  services.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the 
framers  of  no  government,  least  of  all  the 
framers  of  our  own,  contemplated  a  practical 
outcome  such  as  this.  If  education  and  train- 
ing unfit  men  for  political  life,  then  there  is 
something  wrong  either  with  our  political  life 
or  with  our  education. 

The  teachers  of  the  country  should  address 
themselves  to  this  question  with  determination 
and  zeal.  Instruction  in  civil  government  is 
good  ;  the  inculcation  of  patriotism  is  good ; 
the  flag  upon  the  schoolhouse  is  good.  But  all 
these  devices  lie  upon  the  surface.  The  real 
question  involved  is  ethical.  It  reaches  deep 
down  to  the  very  foundations  of  morality.  It 
is  illuminated  by  history. 

The  public  education  of  a  great  democratic 
people  has  other  aims  to  fulfil  than  the  exten- 
sion of  scientific  knowledge  or  the  development 
of  literary  culture.  It  must  prepare  for  intel- 
ligent citizenship.  More  than  a  century  ago 
Burke  wrote  that  "  the  generality  of  people  are 


DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION  118 

fifty  years,  at  least,  behindhand  in  their  poli- 
tics. There  are  but  very  few  who  are  capable 
of  comparing  and  digesting  what  passes  before 
their  eyes  at  different  times  and  occasions,  so 
as  to  form  the  whole  into  a  distinct  system." 
This  is  the  warning  of  one  of  the  greatest  of 
publicists  that  a  thoroughly  instructed  and 
competent  public  opinion  on  political  matters 
is  difficult  to  attain.  Yet,  unless  we  are  to 
surrender  the  very  principle  on  which  democ- 
racy rests,  we  must  struggle  to  attain  it. 
Something  may  be  accomplished  b}r  precept, 
something  by  direct  instruction,  much  by 
example.  The  words  "politics"  and  "politi- 
cian" must  be  rescued  from  the  low  esteem 
into  which  they  have  fallen,  and  restored  to 
their  ancient  and  honorable  meaning.  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  the  framers  of  our  Constitu- 
tion never  foresaw  that  the  time  would  come 
when  thousands  of  intelligent  men  and  women 
would  regard  "  politics  "  as  beneath  them,  and 
when  a  cynical  unwillingness  to  participate 
in  the  choice  of  persons  and  policies  would 
develop  among  the  people.  Yet  such  is,  of 
course,  the  case.      The  people  of  the  state  of 


114  DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION 

New  York  will  in  November  next  choose  a 
governor.  The  power  and  dignity  of  the 
office  make  it  one  of  the  greatest  in  the  land. 
About  one  and  a  half  million  qualified  voters 
will  be  entitled  to  participate  in  the  choice. 
Theoretically  any  competent  person  might  be 
put  forward  for  the  office,  and  every  indi- 
vidual's preference  would  be  recorded  and 
weighed.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the 
choice  of  the  state  must  be  made  between  two 
persons,  who  in  turn  will  be  selected  by,  per- 
haps, ten  per  cent,  of  the  electorate,  at  the  sug- 
gestion or  dictation  of  not  more  than  a  dozen 
men.  Had  such  a  system,  or  anything  like  it, 
been  proposed  at  the  time  the  Constitution  was 
adopted,  there  would  have  been  instant  rebel- 
lion. "  Life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness" would  not  have  seemed  worth  having 
under  such  conditions.  Yet,  now  that  it  has 
come  about,  there  is  no  very  great  dissatisfac- 
tion with  it.  The  system  could  be  broken  up 
in  a  twelvemonth  if  men  really  cared  to  break 
it  up.  It  exists,  therefore,  by  popular  consent, 
if  not  with  popular  approval.  Its  objective  re~ 
suits  may  be  as  good  as  those  that  would  be 


DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION  115 

reached  by  the  ideal  system ;  but  its  effect  on 
the  individual  is  disastrous.  It  induces  a  feel- 
ing of  irresponsibility  for  public  policy  and  a 
lack  of  interest  in  it  that  are  absolutely  de- 
structive of  good  citizenship.  The  good  citi- 
zen is  not  the  querulous  critic  of  public  men 
and  public  affairs,  however  intelligent  he  may 
be ;  he  is  rather  the  constant  participator  in 
political  struggles,  who  has  well-grounded  con- 
victions and  a  strong  determination  to  influ- 
ence, by  all  honorable  means,  the  opinion  of 
the  community.  Were  it  otherwise,  universal 
suffrage  would  not  be  worth  having,  and  public 
education  would  be  a  luxury,  not  a  necessity. 

We  do  not  better  ourselves  or  serve  the  pub- 
lic interest  by  berating  those  who  do  interest 
themselves  continually  in  politics,  when  their 
aims  and  their  methods  are  not  to  our  liking. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  patriotic  and 
well-intentioned  element  in  the  community  is 
stronger  and  more  numerous  than  the  self- 
seeking  and  evil-dispositioned.  It  has  the 
remedy  in  its  own  hands,  and  it  is  one  of  the 
chief  duties  of  our  education  to  enforce  this 
truth. 


116  DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION 

Much  of  the  disinclination  to  engage  in 
active  political  life  that  is  noticeable  among  a 
portion  of  our  people  is  due,  I  believe,  to  the 
evil  effects  upon  political  standards  and 
methods  that  flow  from  the  debasing  and 
degrading  system  that  has  gained  so  strong  a 
hold  in  the  United  States  of  treating  public 
office  as  a  reward  for  partisan  activity.  The 
spoils  system  is  absolutely  undemocratic  and 
utterly  unworthy  of  toleration  by  an  intelli- 
gent people.  Suppose  that  it  ruled  the  schools, 
as  it  rules  so  many  other  departments  of  public 
administration :  then  we  should  expect  to  see 
the  election  of  a  mayor  in  Boston,  Chicago, 
New  Orleans,  or  San  Francisco,  followed  by 
hundreds  of  changes  among  the  public  school 
teachers,  made  solely  for  political  reasons. 
How  long  would  the  National  Educational 
Association  permit  that  to  go  on  without  a 
protest  that  would  be  heard  and  heeded  from 
Maine  to  Texas  ?  Yet  why  should  teachers,  as 
good  citizens,  be  more  tolerant  of  such  an  abuse 
in  other  departments  of  the  government  ?  We 
have  all  noted  with  gratification  the  progress 
that  is  making  toward  the  elimination  of  this 


DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION     117 

evil.  A  determined  band  of  men  have  kept 
the  issue  before  the  public  for  nearly  a  genera- 
tion, and  now  they  have  the  satisfaction  of  see- 
ing a  great  portion  of  the  national  service 
wrested  from  the  defiling  hand  of  the  spoils 
hunter.  In  the  state  of  New  York  the  people 
have  put  into  their  new  constitution  an  em- 
phatic declaration  on  the  subject.  The  full 
effect  of  this  declaration,  splendidly  upheld 
and  broadly  interpreted  by  the  courts,  is  just 
beginning  to  dawn  upon  the  foes  of  a  reformed 
and  efficient  public  service.  From  this  ad- 
vance of  sound  sentiment  and  honest  policy 
we  may  take  every  encouragement.  But  much 
remains  to  be  done.  Public  sentiment  must  be 
first  interested,  then  educated.  Efficient  pub- 
lic service  is  a  mark  of  civilization.  To  turn 
over  the  care  of  great  public  undertakings  to 
the  self-seeking  camp-followers  of  some  politi- 
cal potentate,  is  barbaric.  We  teachers  are  the 
first  to  insist  that  incompetent  and  untrained 
persons  shall  not  be  allowed  in  the  service  of 
the  schools.  Why,  then,  should  we  tolerate 
the  sight  of  a  house-painter,  instead  of  an 
engineer,  supervising  the  streets  and  roadways 


118  DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION 

of  a  city  of  a  hundred  thousand  inhabitants,  or 
that  of  an  illiterate  hanger-on  presiding  over 
the  public  works  of  a  great  metropolis? 
These  instances,  drawn  at  random  from  recent 
political  history,  are  typical  of  conditions  that 
will  be  found  widely  diffused  throughout  our 
public  service.  Those  conditions  exist  because 
of  bad  citizenship,  low  ideals  of  public  service, 
and  wretchedly  inadequate  moral  vision.  They 
will  not  be  remedied  until  each  one  of  us 
assumes  his  share  of  the  task. 

It  is  instructive,  too,  to  note  that  the  spoils 
system  has  diverted  public  interest  in  great 
measure  from  choice  between  policies  to  a 
choice  between  men.  Two  hundred  years 
ago  men  made  great  sacrifices  for  an  oppor- 
tunity to  share  in  the  making  of  the  laws 
by  which  they  were  governed.  Yet  when,  in 
1894,  the  people  of  the  state  of  New  York 
were  called  upon  to  vote,  at  one  and  the 
same  election,  for  a  governor  and  for  or 
against  a  new  constitution;  containing  many 
important  and  some  novel  propositions,  more 
than  a  million  and  a  quarter  men  voted  for 
a    candidate    for    governor,    while    less    than 


DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION  119 

three-quarters  of  a  million  expressed  them- 
selves regarding  the  proposed  constitution. 
And  this  is  by  no  means  a  solitary  instance 
of  the  tendency  that  it  illustrates.  A  rational 
and  intelligent  democracy  will  first  discuss 
questions  of  principle  and  then  select  agents 
to  carry  their  determinations  into  effect.  To 
fix  our  interest  solely  on  individuals,  and  to 
overlook  or  neglect  the  principles  for  which 
they  stand,  is  not  intelligent. 

It  is  a  serious  error,  too,  to  believe,  and 
to  spread  the  belief,  that  democracies  have 
nothing  to  learn  as  to  principles  of  govern- 
ment and  nothing  to  improve.  From  the 
time  of  Aristotle  the  dangers  that  are  in- 
herent in  democracy  have  been  known  and 
discussed.  But  in  our  time  men  are  often 
too  blinded  by  the  brilliancy  of  the  mani- 
fest successes  and  advantages  of  this  form 
of  government  to  be  able  or  willing  to  con- 
sider carefully  the  other  side  of  the  picture. 
How  long,  for  example,  could  the  American 
Congress  maintain  its  power  and  prestige, 
if  its  membership  was  split  up  into  half  a 
score  of  warring  groups,  as  in  France?     How 


120  DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION 

long  will  the  American  Senate  continue  to 
call  forth  the  respect  and  confidence  of  the 
people,  if  its  childish  methods  of  transacting 
public  business  and  its  inability  to  close  its 
own  debates  are  allowed  to  continue?  How 
long  would  life  in  our  greatest  city  be  en- 
durable, if  its  administration  be  turned  over 
permanently  to  the  ignorant  and  rapacious 
members  of  a  society  organized  for  political 
plunder?  What  more  distressing  division 
of  our  people  can  there  be  than  one  on  sec- 
tional lines,  such  as  took  place  in  1860  and 
such  as  is  being  attempted  again  in  1896? 
Is  it  possible  to  believe  that  our  native  op- 
timism is  all  that  is  needed  to  extricate  us 
from  these  dangers  —  dangers  not  imaginary, 
but  terribly  real  ? 

The  difficulties  of  democracy  are  the  op- 
portunities of  education.  If  our  education 
be  sound,  if  it  lay  due  emphasis  on  indi- 
vidual responsibility  for  social  and  political 
progress,  if  it  counteract  the  anarchistic  ten- 
dencies that  grow  out  of  selfishness  and 
greed,  if  it  promote  a  patriotism  that  reaches 
farther  than  militant  jingoism  and  gunboats, 


DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION  121 

then  we  may  cease  to  have  any  doubts  as  to 
the  perpetuity  and  integrity  of  our  institu- 
tions. But  I  am  profoundly  convinced  that 
the  greatest  educational  need  of  our  time, 
in  higher  and  lower  schools  alike,  is  a  fuller 
appreciation  on  the  part  of  the  teachers  of 
what  human  institutions  really  mean  and 
what  tremendous  moral  issues  and  principles 
they  involve.  The  ethics  of  individual  life 
must  be  traced  to  its  roots  in  the  ethics  of 
the  social  whole.  The  family,  property,  the 
common  law,  the  state,  and  the  church,  are 
all  involved.  These,  and  their  products, 
taken  together,  constitute  civilization  and 
mark  it  off  from  barbarism.  Inheritor  of 
a  glorious  past,  each  generation  is  a  trustee 
for  posterity.  To  preserve,  protect,  and 
transmit  its  inheritance  unimpaired,  is  its 
highest  duty.  To  accomplish  this  is  not 
the  task  of  the  few,  but  the  duty  of  all. 

That  democracy  alone  will  be  triumphant 
which  has  both  intelligence  and  character. 
To  develop  them  among  the  whole  people 
is  the  task  of  education  in  a  democracy. 
Not,   then,   by  vainglorious   boasting,   not  by 


122  DEMOCKACY  AND  EDUCATION 

self-satisfied  indifference,  not  by  selfish  and 
indolent  withdrawal  from  participation  in 
the  interests  and  government  of  the  commu- 
nity, but  rather  by  the  enthusiasm,  born  of 
intense  conviction,  that  finds  the  happiness 
of  each  in  the  good  of  all,  will  our  educa- 
tional ideals  be  satisfied  and  our  free  gov- 
ernment be  placed  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
forces  of  dissolution  and  decay. 


THE  AMERICAN  COLLEGE  AND  THE 
AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY 


An  Introduction 
to  Paulsen's  "German  Universities, 
their  character  and  historical  development 
(New  York,   1895) 


THE  AMERICAN  COLLEGE  AND  THE 
AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY 

Nowhere,  outside  of  the  German-speaking 
countries  themselves,  have  the  German  uni- 
versities been  so  highly  appreciated  and  so 
widely  imitated  as  in  the  United  States.  Just 
as  the  historic  American  college  traces  its  ori- 
gin in  direct  line  to  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
and  their  influence,  so  the  new  American  uni- 
versity represents,  to  a  remarkable  degree,  the 
influence  and  authority  of  the  academic  tradi- 
tions of  Heidelberg  and  Gottingen,  of  Leipsic 
and  Berlin. 

The  distinction  between  the  function  of  the 
college  and  that  of  the  university,  which  be- 
comes clearer  day  by  day  to  the  student  of 
education,  has  thus  far  proved  too  subtle  to 
reach  the  understanding  and  too  commonplace 
to  satisfy  the  pride  of  the  American  people ; 
for  the  existing  terminology  inextricably  con- 
125 


126  COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY 

fuses  colleges  and  universities,  and  sometimes 
even  institutions  that  are  little  more  than  sec- 
ondary schools,  and  it  taxes  the  patience  and 
skill  of  the  expert  to  disentangle  them.  If 
we  cut  the  Gordian  knot  by  allowing  every 
institution  founded  for  any  form  or  phase  of 
higher  education  to  classify  itself  by  the  name 
that  it  assumes,  then  there  are  no  fewer  than 
134  universities  in  the  United  States.1  Of 
these,  7  are  in  Illinois  (although  the  new  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago  was  not  included  in  the 
enumeration  of  1890-91),  8  are  in  Kansas,  14 
are  in  Ohio,  9  are  in  Tennessee  (of  which  total 
the  city  of  Nashville  alone,  with  about  80,000 
inhabitants,  contributes  3),  8  are  in  Texas,  and 
4  are  in  the  city  of  New  Orleans.  When  this 
surprising  number  is  compared  with  the  total 
of  20  universities  for  the  whole  German  Em- 
pire, it  is  evident,  without  further  investiga- 
tion, that  there  is  some  difference  in  standard 
between  the  two  countries,  and  that  to  be  a 
university  in  fact  is  something  more  than  to 
be  a  university  in  name. 

1  Beport  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education,  1890-91,  pp. 
1398-1413. 


COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY  127 

According  to  another  extreme  view,  there 
are  no  American  universities  whatever.  Only 
two  years  ago  so  distinguished  an  authority 
as  Professor  von  Hoist,  formerly  of  Freiburg 
but  now  attached  to  the  University  of  Chicago, 
said: 2  — 

"  There  is  in  the  United  States  as  yet  not  a 
single  university  in  the  sense  attached  to  the 
word  by  Europeans.  All  the  American  insti- 
tutions bearing  this  name  are  either  compounds 
of  college  and  university  —  the  university,  as 
an  aftergrowth,  figuring  still  to  some  extent 
as  a  kind  of  annex  or  excrescence  of  the  col- 
lege—  or  hybrids  of  college  and  university, 
or,  finally,  a  torso  of  a  university.  An  insti- 
tution wholly  detached  from  the  school  work 
done  by  colleges,  and  containing  all  the  four 
faculties  organically  connected  to  a  Universitas 
literarum,  does  not  exist." 

Inasmuch  as  there  is  no  common  agreement 
among  Europeans  as  to  what  the  term  "uni- 
versity" means  —  as  may  readily  be  seen  by 
contrasting  the  University  of  Oxford  with  the 
University  of  France,  and  either  or  both  with 
1  Educational  Review,  V,  113. 


128  COLLEGE   AND  UNIVERSITY 

the  University  of  Berlin — Professor  von  Hoist 
obviously  meant  by  European,  German;  and 
his  definition  of  a  university  bears  out  this 
interpretation.  With  this  limitation  his  judg- 
ment may  be  accepted  as  technically  correct ; 
but  it  rests  upon  two  false  assumptions : 
(1)  that  exact  reproductions  of  the  German 
universities  should  be  developed  in  the  United 
States,  and  that  until  this  development  takes 
place  there  will  be  no  American  universities; 
and  (2)  that  the  American  college  is  to  be 
classed  with  the  German  gymnasium  as  a  sec- 
ondary school.  Into  these  two  blunders  those 
observers  of  American  educational  organization 
who  occupy  the  exclusively  German  point  of 
view  habitually  fall ;  and  in  more  than  one 
instance  the  truest  and  most  natural  develop- 
ment of  higher  education  in  America  has  been 
impeded  and  retarded  by  the  attempt,  on  the 
part  of  those  who  share  Professor  von  Hoist's 
errors,  to  force  that  development  into  the  ex- 
act channels  worn  by  German  precedent. 

The  American  university  may,  or  rather 
must,  learn  the  lessons  that  its  German  prede- 
cessor has  to  teach,  but  it  should  be  expected 


COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY  129 

to  develop  also  characteristics  peculiar  to  it- 
self. In  order  to  become  great  —  indeed,  in 
order  to  exist  at  all,  —  a  university  must  rep- 
resent the  national  life  and  minister  to  it. 
When  the  universities  of  any  country  cease 
to  be  in  close  touch  with  the  social  life  and 
institutions  of  the  people,  and  fail  to  yield 
to  the  efforts  of  those  who  would  readjust 
them,  their  days  of  influence  are  numbered. 
The  same  is  true  of  any  system  of  educational 
organization.  For  this  reason  alone,  if  for 
no  other,  an  educational  organization  closely 
following  the  German  type  would  not  thrive 
in  America ;  indeed,  with  all  its  undisputed 
excellences,  the  German  system  would  not 
meet  our  needs  so  well  as  the  yet  unsyste- 
matic, but  remarkably  effective,  organization 
that  circumstances  have  brought  into  exis- 
tence. Therefore  Professor  von  Hoist  is  not 
likely  at  any  time  to  see  a  single  university 
in  the  United  States,  if  he  persists  in  giving 
to  that  word  its  technical  German  significance. 
But  using  the  word  in  a  broader,  and,  I  be- 
lieve, a  truer  sense,  —  the  sense  that,  while 
not   confounding   it   with   a   college,   however 


130  COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY 

large  or  however  ancient,  nor  applying  it 
mistakenly  to  a  college  and  a  surrounding 
group  of  technical  and  professional  faculties 
or  schools,  yet  extends  the  term  to  include 
any  institution  where  students,  adequately 
trained  by  previous  study  of  the  liberal  arts 
and  sciences,  are  led  into  special  fields  of 
learning  and  research  by  teachers  of  high  ex- 
cellence and  originality;  and  where,  by  the 
agency  of  libraries,  museums,  laboratories,  and 
publications,  knowledge  is  conserved,  advanced, 
and  disseminated, — in  this  sense  one  may  per- 
haps count  six  or  eight  American  universities 
in  existence  to-day,  and  half  as  many  more 
in  the  process  of  making. 

To  confuse  the  American  college  with  the 
German  gymnasium  is  inexcusable.  Neither 
a  large  college  like  Princeton,  nor  a  smaller 
one  like  Williams  or  Bowdoin,  can  be  imag- 
ined as  part  of  the  gymnasial  system.  The 
American  college  is,  in  the  phrase  of  Tacitus, 
tantum  sui  similis  ;  neither  the  English  pub- 
lic school,  the  French  lycee,  nor  the  German 
gymnasium,  is  its  counterpart.  Its  free  stu- 
dent-life and   broad  range  of   studies  liken  it 


COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY  131 

in  some  degree  to  a  university ;  but  the  imma- 
turity of  its  students,  the  necessarily  didactic 
character  of  most  of  the  work  of  its  instruc- 
tors, and  the  end  that  it  has  in  view,  mark 
it  off  as  belonging  to  a  different  type.  The 
college  has  proved  to  be  well  suited  to  the 
demands  of  American  life  and  to  be  a  power- 
ful force  in  American  civilization  and  culture. 
Its  usefulness  is  in  no  wise  impaired  nor  its 
dignity  lessened  now  that  the  university,  with 
a  wholly  different  aim  and  a  totally  different 
set  of  problems  to  solve,  has  grown  up  by  its 
side.  As  President  Hyde,  of  Bowdoin  Col- 
lege, has  truly  and  forcibly  said  :  l  "  For  com- 
bining sound  scholarship  with  solid  character ; 
for  making  men  both  intellectually  and  spirit- 
ually free ;  for  uniting  the  pursuit  of  truth 
with  reverence  for  duty,  the  small  college 
[and  the  large  as  well],  open  to  the  worthy 
graduates  of  every  good  high  school,  present- 
ing a  course  sufficiently  rigid  to  give  sym- 
metrical development  and  sufficiently  elastic  to 
encourage  individuality  along  congenial  lines, 
taught  by  professors  who  are  men  first  and 
1  Educational  Review,  II,  320,  321. 


132  COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY 

scholars  afterwards,  governed  by  kindly  per- 
sonal influence  and  secluded  from  too  fre- 
quent contact  with  social  distractions,  has  a 
mission  which  no  change  of  educational  con- 
ditions can  take  away,  and  a  policy  which 
no  sentiment  of  vanity  or  jealousy  should  be 
permitted  to  turn  aside." 

In  1891  there  was  one  student  enrolled  in 
a  college  of  the  liberal  arts  and  sciences  for 
every  1363  inhabitants  of  the  United  States.1 
Counting  five  persons  to  a  family,2  this  means 
that  one  family  in  every  272.6,  the  country 
over,  contributed  to  the  college  population. 
Of  course,  in  some  sections  of  the  country 
the  ratio  was  much  less.  In  Massachusetts, 
for  example,  there  was  one  college  student 
for  every  858  of  population,  or  one  for  every 
171.6  families.  In  Iowa  the  proportion  was 
one  to  908  persons,  or  181.6  families ;  in 
Utah,  one  to  789  persons,  or  157.8  families. 
These  statistics,   read  in  relation  to  the  vast 

1  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education,  1890-91, 
p.  827. 

2  The  actual  ratio  in  the  United  States  in  1890  was  4.93 
(see  Abstract  of  the  Eleventh  Census,  1890,  p.  64). 


COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY  138 

extent  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States 
and  to  the  heterogeneousness  of  its  popula- 
tion of  70,000,000,  are  ample  proof,  if  proof 
were  needed,  that  the  college  is  a  very  famil- 
iar feature  in  American  life,  and  that  it  sup- 
plies the  educational  needs  of  the  people  to 
a  remarkable  degree. 

Of  the  481  American  colleges,  perhaps  no 
two  have  precisely  the  same  course  of  study 
or  the  same  equipment ;  but  the  common 
features  that  distinguish  them  are  well  known. 
The  ancient  classics,  mathematics,  the  English 
language  and  literature,  the  modern  European 
languages,  the  natural  sciences,  economics  and 
philosophy,  are  doubtless  represented  to  some 
extent  in  every  college  curriculum  ;  yet  every 
phase  of  educational  opinion  and  every  variety 
of  local  interest  are  represented  in  the  details 
of  their  arrangement.  But  we  may  be  sure 
that  wherever  it  is  found,  whether  on  the 
Atlantic  seaboard,  in  some  inland  town  of 
the  West  or  South,  or  on  the  Pacific  slope, 
the  college  is  a  force  making  for  a  broader 
intellectual  life  and  a  higher  type  of  citizen- 
ship.    It  leaves  to  the  university  the  task  of 


134  COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY 

educating  specialists,  investigators,  and  sci- 
entifically trained  members  of  the  learned 
professions. 

The  diversity  of  the  college  when  contrasted 
with  the  uniformity  of  the  gymnasium  makes 
it  plain  that  the  American  university  does 
not  rest  upon  any  uniform  and  closely  con- 
trolled foundation.  American  students  come 
to  the  university  with  very  varied  prepara- 
tion in  knowledge  and  training.  But  if  the 
healthy  forces  recently  set  at  work  in  the 
field  of  American  higher  education  bring 
about  their  legitimate  results,  the  efficiency 
of  the  university  and  its  power  for  good 
will  be  distinctly  increased  rather  than  dimin- 
ished by  the  fact  that  its  students  are  not  all 
cast  in  a  common  mould.  The  principles  of 
the  limited  election  of  studies  and  of  the 
adaptation  of  the  curriculum  to  the  pupil, 
rather  than  the  pupil  to  the  curriculum,  are 
as  sound  when  applied  in  the  secondary  school 
as  in  the  college,  and  the  scope  of  their  appli- 
cation widens  year  by  year.  The  American 
college  graduate  who  desires  a  university 
career    is    thus    enabled   to  enter    upon  it  a 


COLLEGE  AND   UNIVERSITY  135 

broadly  and  liberally  educated  man,  with 
tastes  formed  and  aptitudes  developed,  ready 
to  undertake  with  immediate  advantage  the 
specialized  work  for  the  sake  of  which  the 
university  exists.  He  is  much  more  widely, 
though  perhaps  less  minutely,  trained,  than 
the  German  Abiturient. 

In  one  very  important  respect  the  American 
system  of  higher  education  is  distinctly  supe- 
rior to  the  German.  In  Germany  a  clear-cut 
dividing  line  between  the  gymnasium  and  the 
university  is  drawn  by  the  complete  and  care- 
fully preserved  difference  in  method,  in  spirit, 
and  in  ideal  that  exists  between  them.  The 
contrast  between  the  narrowness  of  the  gym- 
nasium and  the  generous  freedom  of  the  univer- 
sity is  very  sharp,  and  many  a  university  student 
loses  his  balance  entirely,  or  wastes  much  pre- 
cious time  and  force,  in  adjusting  himself  to  his 
totally  new  surroundings.  In  America,  on  the 
contrary,  the  college  and  the  university  some- 
times exist  side  by  side  in  the  same  corpora- 
tion, as  at  Harvard,  Johns  Hopkins,  Columbia, 
and  Chicago,  and  the  work  of  the  one  passes 
gradually  and  insensibly  into  that  of  the  other. 


136  COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY 

Even  when,  as  is  generally  the  case,  the  col- 
lege exists  as  a  thing  apart,  the  later  years  of 
its  course  of  study  are  so  organized  and  con- 
ducted as  to  make  the  transition  from  college 
to  university  easy  and  natural.  This  practice 
is  sound  in  psychology,  sound  in  economics, 
and  sound  in  common  sense.  Its  practical  suc- 
cess is  amply  demonstrated  by  the  fact  that 
there  is  no  American  university  —  unless  that 
name  be  given  to  the  few  partially  developed 
departments  of  study  represented  at  Worcester, 
Mass.,  —  that  is  not  in  the  closest  relation  to  a 
college  which  is  a  member  of  the  same  corpora- 
tion. The  institutions  that  to  Professor  von 
Hoist  are  "compounds  of  college  and  univer- 
sity "  are,  therefore,  not,  -as  he  evidently  thinks, 
compounds  of  gymnasium  and  university,  but 
the  peculiar  product  of  the  American  educa- 
tional organization  and  its  peculiar  strength. 

But  though  the  foundation  on  which  uni- 
versity work  in  America  rests,  differs  and  will 
continue  to  differ  from  that  provided  in  Ger- 
many by  a  uniform  system  of  state-controlled 
gymnasiums,  the  university  itself  is  essentially 
the  same ;    indeed,  its   organization  has   been 


COLLEGE   AND  UNIVERSITY  137 

effected  largely  by  men  who  had  studied  in 
the  German  universities,  and  who  desired  to 
develop  in  the  United  States  a  similar  vehicle 
for  the  highest  form  of  the  scientific  activity 
of  the  nation.  The  three  fundamental  princi- 
ples that  the  German  universities  have  estab- 
lished and  brilliantly  illustrated,  Lehrfreiheit, 
Lernfreiheit,  and  the  pursuit  of  science  for  its 
own  sake,  are  fully  recognized  in  the  American 
universities  ;  although  it  cannot  be  said  that 
the  third  principle  is  as  -fully  lived  up  to  as 
it  ought  to  be.  Professor  Paulsen  has  himself 
pointed  out  in  his  latest  publication  on  the 
subject1  that  the  peculiar  character  of  the  Ger- 
man university  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  closely 
connects  research  and  teaching.  At  present 
complaint  is  made  that  the  one  aim,  research, 
is  too  largely  pursued  at  the  expense  of  the 
other,  with  the  undoubted  result,  as  a  German 
university  professor  admits,2  that,  considered 
merely  as  teaching  institutions,  the  American 
universities  surpass  the  German  in  efficiency. 

1  Deutsche  Rundschau,  September,  1894. 
8  Professor  Hugo  Munsterberg,  quoted  in  Educational 
Review,  VII,  204. 


138  COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY 

The  emphasis  often  laid  on  teaching,  at  the 
expense  of  research,  in  the  American  universi- 
ties is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  the  older 
generation  of  American  university  professors 
are  men  who  were  for  many  years  engaged  in 
the  work  of  purely  collegiate  teaching,  and 
they  have  neither  outgrown  nor  cast  off  the 
habits  and  methods  of  years,  nor  combined  re- 
search with  teaching  in  any  marked  degree. 
This,  of  course,  is  quite  as  much  to  be  depre- 
cated as  an  exaggeration  of  the  opposite  ten- 
dency. The  younger  generation  of  university 
teachers,  however,  a  large  proportion  of  whom 
have  been  trained  in  Germany,  combine  re- 
search with  teaching  in  almost  every  instance ; 
though,  happily,  research  is  not  yet  reduced 
to  work  with  "the  lens,  electrode,  test-tube, 
and  psychometer,"  which  apparently  seems  to 
Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall  to  cover  the  field  of  possi- 
ble investigation.1  It  is  possible,  of  course,  in 
the  enthusiastic  devotion  to  research  to  over- 
look entirely  or  to  minimize  the  need  of  good 
teaching  in  universities,  and  also  to  exaggerate 

1  See  "  Research    the   vital   spirit  of   teaching,"    The 
Forum,  August,  1894. 


COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY  139 

the  influence  of  research  in  producing  good 
teachers  ;  but  from  present  indications,  this  is 
not  a  source  of  immediate  danger  in  the  United 
States.  Our  wisest  university  teachers  are  in 
agreement  with  Virchow,  who  said  recently1 
that  the  aim  of  university  study  is  "  general 
scientific  and  moral  culture  together  with  the 
mastery  of  one  special  department  of  study." 
The  main  obstacle  to  the  full  establishment 
in  America  of  the  pursuit  of  science  for  its  own 
sake,  as  a  controlling  university  principle,  is 
the  development  and  rapid  growth  of  technical 
schools,  with  low  standards  of  entrance,  in  con- 
nection with  universities,  and  their  admission 
to  a  full  and  even  controlling  share  in  univer- 
sity legislation  and  administration.  Indeed,  in 
this  lies  the  chief  danger  to  the  integrity  of 
American  university  development.  Thus  far 
the  Johns  Hopkins  University  has  escaped 
these  influences  entirely,  and  Harvard  Univer- 
sity has  been  able  to  hold  them  in  check.  But 
at  some  other  institutions  they  are  strong  and 
menacing.  The  danger  consists  in  allowing 
the  claim  that  closely  specialized  work  in  a 
1  Lernen  und  Forschen  (Berlin,  1892),  p.  8.      , 


140  COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY 

purely  technical  or  professional  branch,  entered 
upon  without  any  broad  preparatory  training 
whatever,  is  to  be  regarded  as  legitimate  uni- 
versity work  and  entitled  to  the  time-honored 
university  recognition  and  rewards.  It  need 
hardly  be  pointed  out  to  the  intelligent  reader 
that  the  tendency  to  do  this  is  under  full  head- 
way in  the  United  States,  and  that  its  essential 
narrowness  and  philistinism  increase  with  its 
success  in  establishing  itself.  The  general 
public  attribute  unmerited  scientific  impor- 
tance to  technical  schools  established  in  con- 
nection with  colleges  and  universities  because 
of  their  large  enrollment ;  and  governing  boards 
look  upon  them  with  favor  both  because  of  the 
influence  they  exert  through  their  graduates 
and  because  they  are  often  important  sources 
of  revenue.  Both  facts  tend  to  divert  atten- 
tion and  funds  from  the  pursuit  of  science  as 
an  end  in  itself,  and  to  keep  that  principle 
from  controlling  university  policy  as  it  should. 
The  difficulty  would  be  diminished,  and  per- 
haps removed,  if  these  technical  schools  (law, 
medicine,  technology,  and  the  like)  were  put 
upon  a  true  university  basis  by  insisting  upon 


COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY  141 

a  liberal  education  as  a  prerequisite  for  admis- 
sion to  them.  This  would  bring  about  a  con- 
dition analogous  to  that  which  prevails  in 
Germany,  and  would  raise  the  American  uni- 
versities to  a  plane  that  they  have  never  yet 
occupied.  For,  with  the  exception  of  the 
medical  school  at  the  Johns  Hopkins  Univer- 
sity and  the  law  school  at  Harvard,  there  are 
no  professional  schools  in  America  of  univer- 
sity rank.  The  others,  without  exception,  admit 
to  their  courses  and  degrees  immature  students 
who  have  had  only  a  partial  secondary  school 
training,  or  often  no  training  at  all.  When 
such  a  state  of  affairs  exists  within  a  university 
organization,  it  is  apparent  that  the  technical 
or  professional  schools  are  an  injury  rather 
than  a  legitimate  source  of  pride  and  strength, 
no  matter  how  many  hundreds  of  students  they 
may  attract.  Indeed,  the  larger  they  become 
the  greater  is  their  influence  for  evil,  for  their 
teaching  is  necessarily  brought  down  to  the 
level  of  the  least-trained  intelligences  among 
the  heterogeneous  body  of  students,  and  in  this 
way  the  standard  of  the  whole  university  is 
lowered. 


142  COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY 

So  far  as  this  tendency  exists  in  the  case  of 
schools  of  applied  science,  it  must  be  confessed 
that  its  existence  is  largely  due  to  the  attitude 
of  the  partisans  of  the  old-fashioned  uniform 
college  course.  By  refusing  to  mathematical 
and  scientific  studies  an  equal  place  by  the 
side  of  Greek  and  Latin,  they  forced  the 
schools  of  science  to  establish  themselves  — 
in  many  cases  on  the  narrowest  possible  edu- 
cational basis  —  outside  of  the  college  and  in 
competition  with  it ;  when,  with  a  broad  and 
generous  treatment  of  the  problems  involved, 
the  scientific  or  technical  course  might  have 
been  grafted  on  the  college  in  a  way  that 
would  have  been  of  inestimable  value  both  to 
the  technical  school  and  to  the  college,  and 
greatly  to  the  advantage  of  the  cause  of  lib- 
eral education.  The  time  when  this  could 
have  been  accomplished  easily  is  past;  but  it 
can  yet  be  brought  about  if  undertaken  in  the 
right  spirit  and  with  wisdom. 

It  is  seemingly  impossible  for  universities 
generally  to  raise  their  schools  of  law  and 
medicine  to  university  rank  in  the  face  of 
public  indifference  as  to  the  educational  quali- 


COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY  143 

fications  of  lawyers  and  physicians.  How 
long  this  indifference  will  continue  unmoved, 
there  are  no  means  of  determining.  Here  and 
there  efforts  are  making  to  insist  upon  some 
portion,  at  least,  of  a  secondary  education  as  a 
qualification  for  admission  to  schools  of  law 
and  medicine.  But  as  a  rule  admission  to  the 
practice  of  those  professions  is  open  to  any 
one,  however  ignorant,  who  will  serve  a  short 
term  of  apprenticeship.  This  arrangement  is 
sometimes  defended  on  the  ground  that  many 
men  have  in  the  past  greatly  distinguished 
themselves  as  lawyers  or  physicians,  though 
without  any  liberal  education  whatever.  This 
is  true,  but  they  were  rare  exceptions;  and 
they  become  rarer  each  year  as  competition 
grows  closer  and  more  pressing.  So  far  as 
law,  at  least,  is  concerned,  one  reason  for  the 
prevailing  laxity  may  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  this  profession  offers  the  easiest  mode  of 
entrance  into  politics ;  and  to  engage  in  that 
field  of  activity  is  often  a  chief  aim  in  the 
minds  of  maDy  young  men  who  have  no  desire 
for  a  liberal  education.  But  whatever  public 
opinion  may  rest  satisfied  with,  it  seems  indis- 


144  COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY 

putable  that  universities  owe  it  to  themselves 
to  put  their  stamp  upon  no  graduates  in  law, 
medicine  and  technology  who  are  not  liberally- 
educated  men. 

When  the  technical  and  professional  schools 
shall  have  been  raised  to  true  university  rank, 
one  series  of  problems  will  be  solved ;  but 
others  will  remain.  It  is  as  necessary  in 
America  as  Paulsen  describes  it  to  be  in  Ger- 
many, to  conserve  the  unity  of  the  university 
about  the  historic  faculty  of  philosophy  as  a 
centre.  This  faculty  is  at  once  the  essence 
of  a  university  and  its  true  glory.  Standing 
alone  it  may  justify  the  title  university,  as 
the  history  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University 
for  twenty  years  amply  demonstrates.  But  to 
make  it  subordinate  or  to  keep  it  weak  and 
unimportant,  whether  by  subdivision  or  other 
means,  is  to  sap  the  university's  life-blood. 
The  faculty  of  philosophy  represents,  when  un- 
divided, the  unity  of  knowledge  and  the  true 
catholicity  of  scholarly  investigation.  Through 
it  each  department  of  study  is  kept  in  sympa- 
thy with  its  fellows,  and  each  strengthens  and 
supports  the  rest.     When  dissevered,  its  parts 


COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY  145 

tend  to  become  mere  Fachschulen ;  and  the 
highest  ideals  of  university  life  are  sacrificed. 
No  stronger  evidence  in  support  of  this  opin- 
ion can  be  cited  than  the  emphatic  statements 
on  the  subject  made  by  du  Bois-Reymond, 
the  physiologist,  and  by  Hofmann,  the  chemist, 
in  their  inaugural  addresses  on  assuming  the 
rectorship  of  the  University  of  Berlin  in  1869 
and  1880,  respectively.  These  are  the  words 
of  du  Bois-Reymond  :  "  The  philosophical  fac- 
ulty forms  the  connecting  link  between  the 
remaining  faculties.  .  .  .  The  reciprocal  ac- 
tion of  the  different  branches  of  human  knowl- 
edge which  takes  place  within  the  philosophical 
faculty,  would  naturally  be  lost  with  its  divi- 
sion, but  this  mutual  influence  contributes 
very  much  to  widen  the  vision  of  the  individ- 
ual, and  to  preserve  in  him  a  right  judgment 
of  his  position  in  relation  to  the  whole.  The 
two  divisions  of  the  faculty  would  finally  ap- 
proach the  character  of  special  schools ;  the 
ideal  stamp  of  the  whole  would  be  destroyed."1 
And  eleven  years  later  Hofmann  defended  the 
same  position  with  equal  vigor. 

1  Ueber  Universitats-Einrichtungen  (Berlin,  1869),  p.  1& 
i. 


146  COLLEGE  AND  UNIVEKSITY 

The  faculty  of  philosophy,  or  of  arts  and 
sciences,  must  not  only  be  preserved  in  its 
integrity,  but  its  spirit  must  dominate  the 
whole  university.  As  has  recently  been  offi- 
cially pointed  out,1  "  The  safety  of  the  uni- 
versity spirit  demands  that  the  university 
proper  [the  faculty  of  philosophy]  be  counted 
as  one  part,  and  the  collected  schools  [tech- 
nical and  professional]  together  as  another 
rather  than  that  each  professional  and  technical 
faculty  shall  claim  a  coordinate  right  with 
the  foundation  faculty,  which  would  thus  be 
made,  not  a  half,  but  a  seventh  (or  possibly 
one-twentieth,  as  the  schools  multiplied)  of 
the  university  which  but  for  it  could  have  no 
real  existence."  This  is  still  another  lesson 
that  the  administrators  of  American  univer- 
sities have  yet  to  learn. 

One  other  danger,  common  to  all  universities, 
whether  German  or  American,  lies  in  the  ex- 
cessive specialization  which  is  so  often  warmly 
recommended  to  university  students.  Its  inev- 
itable result  is  loss  of  ability  to  see  things  in 

1  See  Beport  of  the  Secretary  of  the  University  of  the  state 
of  New  York  for  1893,  p.  176. 


COLLEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY  147 

their  proper  proportions,  as  well  as  loss  of 
sympathy  with  learning  as  a  whole.  Perhaps 
the  division  of  labor  cannot  be  carried  too  far 
for  the  value  of  the  product,  but  certainly  it 
can  be  carried  too  far  for  the  good  of  the 
laborer. 

"  Denn  nur  der  grosse  Gegenstand  vermag 
Den  tiefen  Grand  der  Menschheit  aufzuregen, 
Im  engen  Kreis  verengert  sich  der  Sinn." 

Signs  are  not  wanting  that  this  narrowing  of 
view  and  of  sympathy  is  already  taking  place  ; 
but  the  university  has  in  the  faculty  of  phi- 
losophy the  means  to  correct  it  if  it  will. 
What  science  and  practical  life  alike  need  is 
not  narrow  men,  but  broad  men  sharpened  to 
a  point.  To  train  such  is  the  highest  func- 
tion of  the  American  university  ;  and  by  its 
success  in  producing  them  must  its  efficiency 
be  finally  judged. 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  SECONDARY 
SCHOOL 


An  Address 

delivered  before  the 

Schoolmasters'  Association  of  New  York  and  vicinity, 

March  8,  1890 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  SECONDARY 
SCHOOL 

Matthew  Arnold  has  reminded  us  that 
the  secondary  school  is  the  most  ancient 
of  existing  educational  institutions.  It  ante- 
dates the  university  by  several  centuries;  and 
by  its  side  the  primary  or  elementary  school, 
springing  as  it  does  from  needs  and  ideas  that 
are  comparatively  modern,  seems  but  a  creature 
of  yesterday.  Moreover,  the  history  of  the  sec- 
ondary school  is  unbroken  and  easily  traceable. 
The  monastery  schools  and  the  famous  estab- 
lishments at  St.  Gall,  Reichenau,  and  Fulda  are 
the  direct  ancestors  of  our  Etons  and  Rugbys, 
of  our  contemporary  lycees,  gymnasia,  and 
academies. 

In  the  United  States  the  educational  organi- 
zation is  so  indefinite  and  unformed,  and  the 
educational  terminology  in  common  use  so  un- 
151 


152    FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY  SCHOOL 

systematic,  that  certain  explanations  are  neces- 
sary before  any  discussion  of  the  province  and 
scope  of  the  secondary  school  may  be  under- 
taken. The  threefold  division  of  instruction 
into  primary  or  elementary,  secondary,  and  su- 
perior, has  been  accepted  by  the  Bureau  of 
Education  at  Washington,  and  is  in  accord 
with  the  practice  on  the  continent  of  Europe. 
By  superior  instruction  is  meant  that  given  in 
institutions  empowered  by  law  to  confer  de- 
grees. This  may  be  either  general  or  special, 
and  includes  in  this  country  the  colleges  and 
universities  as  well  as  the  professional  schools 
of  law,  medicine,  theology,  education,  agricult- 
ure, pharmacy,  engineering,  and  the  like.  The 
implication  is,  though  unfortunately  not  always 
the  fact,  that  these  institutions  for  superior 
instruction  have  required  of  applicants  for 
admission  the  possession  of  an  approved  sec- 
ondary education.  By  primary  or  elementary 
instruction  is  meant  such  as  the  state  is  justi- 
fied in  requiring  of  all  children  for  its  own 
safety  and  perpetuity.  In  the  present  state 
of  educational  science  this  may  safely  be  held 
to  include  a  knowledge  of  reading  and  writing, 


FUNCTION  OF  THE  SECONDARY   SCHOOL    153 

and  some  instruction  in  elementary  arithmetic, 
geography,  history,  natural  science,  and  manual 
training.  This  elementary  education  should 
begin  not  later  than  the  sixth  year  of  life  and 
with  the  average  child  seven  years  may  be 
devoted  to  it,  although  specially  intelligent 
or  studious  children  may  be  permitted,  as  in 
France,  to  complete  the  prescribed  studies  in 
less  time. 

It  would  seem  natural,  then,  that  the  field 
of  secondary  instruction  should  be  that  which 
lies  between  the  elementary  and  the  superior 
schools.  But  this  is  not  quite  true.  There 
is  and  can  be  no  sharp  line  of  division  between 
the  various  grades  of  instruction.  They  pass 
gradually,  even  insensibly,  into  each  other.  In 
order  to  prevent  the  pupil's  development  from 
being  arrested  and  his  capacity  for  education 
from  being  brought  to  an  end,  he  must  con- 
stantly be  led  on  to  new  heights.  For  this 
reason  certain  studies,  usually  classed  as  be- 
longing to  secondary  education,  such  as  algebra 
and  a  foreign  language,  are  very  appropriately 
taught  in  the  upper  grades  of  the  elementary 
school.     A  beginning  in  the  field  of  secondary 


154    FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY  SCHOOL 

studies  is  therefore  made  before  the  limits  of 
the  elementary  school  are  reached,  and  by 
the  time  that  the  pupil  is  twelve,  eleven,  or 
even  ten  years  of  age.  This  is  actually  the 
case  with  the  French  lycee  and  the  Prussian 
gymnasium. 

At  the  upper  end  of  the  secondary  school 
course  a  similar  condition  is  found.  There  is 
no  reason  why  many  secondary  schools,  partic- 
ularly public  high  schools,  over  60  per  cent,  of 
whose  graduates  do  not  go  on  to  a  higher  edu- 
cational institution,  should  not  give  instruc- 
tion in  subjects  such  as  logic,  political  economy, 
and  trigonometry,  which  are  contained  in  every 
college  course.  Unless  this  policy  is  adopted, 
the  vast  majority  of  American  boys  and  girls 
will  be  deprived  of  all  opportunity  to  come 
in  contact  with  these  studies  and  others  like 
them. 

In  the  past  the  secondary  school  in  this 
country  has  been  very  often  dwarfed  in  im- 
portance and  deprived  of  its  proper  spontane- 
ity and  individuality,  because  it  has  permitted 
itself  to  settle  down  to  the  routine  task  of 
preparing  pupils  for  entrance   examination  to 


FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY  SCHOOL    155 

college,  fixed  and  conducted  by  the  college 
authorities.  Whatever  that  entrance  exami- 
nation demanded,  and  in  some  cases  just  a 
trifle  more,  has  been  taught ;  whatever  such 
examination  did  not  call  for,  no  matter  how 
important  or  valuable  it  might  be  for  a  boy's 
education,  has  not  been  taught.  The  second- 
ary school  has  been  too  largely  dominated  by 
the  college  ;  and  in  few  cases  has  that  domina- 
tion been  other  than  unfortunate.  As  notable 
instances  of  the  contrary  effect  may  be  men- 
tioned the  stimulating  influence  of  the  more 
recent  regulations  regarding  entrance  examina- 
tions adopted  by  Harvard  College,  particularly 
in  geometry  and  in  physics,  and  the  novel 
unity  and  thoroughness  imparted  to  the  in- 
struction in  English  in  the  secondary  schools 
by  the  action  of  the  colleges  in  uniting  with 
the  schools  in  deciding  upon  a  uniform 
scheme  of  requirements  for  entrance  in  that 
subject. 

It  is  neither  proper  nor  dignified  for  the 
secondary  schools  to  continue  in  this  con- 
dition of  dependence  upon  college  entrance 
examinations.      They   should   be  independent 


156    FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY  SCHOOL 

and  self-centred.  By  a  careful  study  of  the 
history  and  principles  of  education,  coupled 
with  the  teachings  of  their  own  large  experi- 
ence, they  should  seek  to  devise  that  course 
of  study  and  those  methods  of  instruction 
that  are  best  suited  to  the  mental,  moral,  and 
physical  development  and  culture  of  the  boys 
and  girls  committed  to  their  care.  Nor  need 
it  be  feared  that  in  so  doing  they  will  in- 
terfere in  any  way  with  the  preparation  of 
their  pupils  for  college  work.  For  in  educa- 
tion it  is  profoundly  true  that  that  which  is 
intrinsically  the  best  in  any  particular  stage 
of  development,  is  also  the  best  preparation 
for  that  which  comes  after. 

If  the  American  boy  is  to  obtain  his  bacca- 
laureate degree  at  the  age  6f  twenty  or 
twenty-one  (which  is  considerably  more  than 
a  year  later  than  the  French  boys  leave  the 
lycee  and  the  Prussian  boys  the  gymnasium), 
he  must  be  ready  to  enter  college  not  later 
than  seventeen;  and  this  can  be  managed 
while  actually  providing  for  the  secondary 
school  a  more  comprehensive  curriculum  than 
at  present  obtains.     Before  discussing  in  de- 


FUNCTION   OF  THE  SECONDARY   SCHOOL    157 

tail  the  composition  of  such  a  curriculum, 
one  or  two  preliminary  considerations  must 
be  mentioned.  They  may,  however,  be  dis- 
missed very  briefly,  since  they  have  so  re- 
cently been  treated  with  the  highest  authority 
by  President  Eliot.1  The  first  of  these  has 
to  do  with  the  length  of  the  school  day  and 
that  of  the  vacations.  The  former  should 
never  be  less  than  five  full  hours  of  study 
and  school  discipline  ;  the  tendency  to  shorten 
it  any  further  is  irrational  and  should  be 
checked.  A  programme  arranged  on  sound 
educational  principles  can  occupy  five  hours 
a  day  easily  enough  without  in  any  way  im- 
pairing the  pupil's  health  or  lessening  his 
interest,  unless  the  teacher  is  peculiarly  lack- 
ing in  mental  equipment  and  professional 
qualifications.  The  vacations  are  now  unduly 
long,  and  seem  to  be  yielding  to  a  certain 
strong  social  pressure  to  make  them  even 
longer.  The  old-fashioned  summer  vacation 
of  four  or  six  weeks  has  long  since  become 
one  of  ten  or  twelve,  and  in  our  city  schools 

1  Can  school  programmes  be  shortened  and  enriched  ? 
Atlantic  Monthly,  August,  1888,  pp.  260-268. 


158    FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY   SCHOOL 

a  summer  vacation  of  fifteen  or  even  sixteen 
weeks  is  by  no  means  a  curiosity.  It  is  the 
teacher  who  needs  this  vacation  more  than 
the  pupil.  But  even  from  his  standpoint  the 
present  practice  has  gone  beyond  reasonable 
bounds.  The  German  method  of  giving  three 
weeks  at  Easter,  one  at  Pfingster,  six  in  mid- 
summer, one  at  Michaelmas,  and  two  at  Christ- 
mas seems  wiser  than  ours,  for  it  makes  a 
more  frequent  alternation  between  work  and 
play.  Perhaps  sixteen  weeks  —  including  the 
recesses  at  Christmas  and  Easter  and  a  long 
summer  vacation,  as  better  suited  to  our  cli- 
mate and  habits  of  life  than  the  German  plan 
—  might  be  agreed  upon  as  the  maximum 
period  in  which  school  duties  may  wisely  be 
suspended  each  year. 

But  in  addition  to  the  school  year  of  thirty- 
six  weeks  and  twenty-five  hours  in  each  week, 
the  secondary  schools  are  sadly  in  need  of 
better  trained  teachers.  It  is  remarkable  how 
entirely  the  teachers  in  these  schools  have  re- 
mained uninfluenced  by  the  great  interest  in 
the  science  and  art  of  teaching  which  has 
of  late   years  manifested  itself    both  in  this 


FUNCTION  OF  THE  SECONDARY   SCHOOL     159 

country  and  in  Europe.  Secure  in  their  pos- 
session of  a  considerable  amount  of  knowledge 
and  of  more  or  less  culture,  the  secondary 
school  teachers  have  not  seemed  to  under- 
stand the  significance  or  the  value  of  a  pro- 
fessional preparation.  As  a  result  their  work 
has  been  done  in  a  routine,  imitative  way  and 
their  pupils  have  suffered.  Most  of  the  criti- 
cisms that  may  now  be  legitimately  made 
upon  the  work  of  the  secondary  schools  would 
be  disarmed  if  the  teachers  in  these  schools 
were  abreast  of  the  present  development  of 
their  art.  One  important  reason  why  the  sec- 
ondary schools  have  not  felt  this  full  measure 
of  progress  in  methods  of  teaching  that  is  so 
marked  in  the  elementary  schools,  is  that  sec- 
ondary teachers  are  usually  college  graduates, 
and  the  colleges  have,  until  very  recently, 
done  so  little  to  show  that  they  are  aware 
of  what  is  being  accomplished  in  the  study  of 
education.  Consequently  they  have  failed  to 
contribute  their  proper  proportion  of  duly 
qualified  teachers.  Until  the  colleges  assume 
their  full  responsibility  in  this  matter  and  en- 
deavor to  discharge  it,  the   work  of  the   sec- 


160    FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY  SCHOOL 

ondary  school,  speaking   broadly,  will  not  be 
as  well  done  as  it  might  be. 

Assuming  that  more  competent  teachers  are 
at  hand  and  that  a  school  year  of  thirty-six 
weeks  of  twenty-five  hours  each  is  agreed 
upon,  what  should  be  the  aim  of  the  instruc- 
tion in  the  secondary  school  and  with  what 
curriculum  should  it  endeavor  to  accomplish 
it?  It  should  be  the  aim  of  the  secondary 
school,  I  take  it,  by  instruction  and  discipline 
to  lay  the  foundation  for  that  cultivation  and 
inspiration  that  mark  the  truly  educated  man. 
In  endeavoring  to  attain  this  ideal,  the  second- 
ary school  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact 
that  it  is  educating  boys  who  are  to  assume 
the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  citizenship, 
and  who  must,  in  all  probability,  pursue  a 
specific  calling  for  the  purpose  of  gaining  a 
livelihood.  The  fact  that  the  secondary  school 
has  also  a  selective  function  to  perform  is 
often  overlooked.  Yet  this  is  most  important. 
Secondary  school  pupils  are  adolescents,  and 
their  tastes  and  capacities  are  rapidly  forming 
and  finding  expression.  To  afford  opportunity 
for  these  to  develop,  and  to  encourage  them  to 


FUNCTION  OF  THE  SECONDARY  SCHOOL    161 

develop  along  the  best  and  most  effective  lines, 
is  an  obvious  duty  of  the  secondary  school. 
Because  they  are  not  selective,  many  secondary 
courses  of  study  are  very  ineffective. 

To  prepare  a  course  of  study  which  shall 
keep  all  these  points  in  mind,  and  at  the  same 
time  afford  the  developing  intellect  of  the 
pupil  that  exercise  of  which  it  is  capable,  is 
not  an  easy  task.  Indeed,  it  presents  some 
problems  which  but  a  little  while  ago  seemed 
almost  impossible  of  solution.  But  patience, 
wider  experience,  and  a  careful  study  of  the 
surrounding  conditions  have  lessened  the  dif- 
ficulties. The  chief  of  these  is  perhaps  that 
created  by  the  rapid  development  and  present 
importance  of  scientific  and  technical  schools. 
These  institutions  represent  a  real  and  signifi- 
cant movement  in  modern  civilization.  They 
have  complicated  the  question  of  a  curriculum 
for  secondary  schools  by  demanding  a  prepara- 
tion quite  different  from  that  required  for  en- 
trance to  the  average  American  college.  That 
the  problem  thus  raised  belongs  to  the  field  of 
secondary  education  in  general  and  is  not  due 
to  conditions  prevailing  in  any  one  country 


162    FUNCTION  OF  THE  SECONDARY  SCHOOL 

alone,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  England, 
Germany,  and  France  have  all  been  brought 
face  to  face  with  it  as  we  have  been.  In  each 
of  these  countries  much  progress  towards  its 
solution  has  been  made.  In  England  the  so- 
called  "modern  side"  has  been  added  to  the 
traditional  classical  course.  In  France  the 
lycee  has  its  cours  spScial  in  which  mathe- 
matics and  the  sciences  replace  Latin  and 
Greek.  In  Germany  the  well-established  real- 
gymnasium  and  real-schule  are  every  year 
justifying  their  right  to  exist  on  an  equal  plane 
with  the  gymnasium  itself.  A  specially  inter- 
esting movement  in  this  connection  is  one  in 
Germany  which  has  for  some  time  past  been 
calling  for  the  establishment  of  an  JSinheits- 
schule,  in  which  the  main  features  both  of 
gymnasium  and  real-schule  are  to  be  combined. 
The  course  of  study  that  I  would  suggest 
for  the  typical  American  secondary  school 
is  one  in  which  nine  elements  are  always 
represented :  namely,  the  mother-tongue,  ge- 
ography and  history,  natural  science,  mathe- 
matics, Latin,  Greek,  French  and  German, 
drawing  and  constructive  work  (manual  train- 


FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY  SCHOOL     163 

ing),  and  physical  training.  It  combines  some 
features  of  the  English  "modern  side"  with 
some  of  those  of  the  French  cours  spScial, 
and  is  not  unlike  what  German  students  of 
education  have  in  mind  under  the  name  of  JSin- 
heit88chule.  It  involves  beginning  the  study 
of  one  foreign  language  at  ten  or  eleven 
years  of  age,  and  the  elements  of  algebra 
and  of  plane  geometry  shortly  afterward. 
Ample  choice  would  be  permitted  to  students, 
provided  only  that  not  more  than  five  so-called 
"book"  subjects  were  carried  on  at  once,  that 
no  two  new  languages  were  begun  at  the  same 
time,  and  that  English,  geography  and  history, 
and  natural  science  were  always  represented. 
Pupils  of  a  different  temperament,  of  different 
points  of  view,  and  with  different  purposes  in 
life  would  be  guided  to  express  and  to  satisfy 
themselves  to  the  fullest  extent  possible.  The 
ability  to  read  intelligently,  to  write  legibly, 
and  to  perform  understandingly  and  correctly 
with  integers  the  four  fundamental  operations 
of  arithmetic,  must  be  insisted  upon  at  ten 
years  of  age. 

The   growing  practice   of    postponing   even 


164    FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY  SCHOOL 

this  modicum  of  knowledge  until  after  the 
tenth  year  is  to  be  emphatically  discouraged. 
Attention  has  recently  been  called  to  the  fact 
that  one  of  the  best-known  academies  in  the 
United  States  requires  for  admission  only  some 
knowledge  of  common  school  arithmetic,  writ- 
ing, spelling,  and  the  elements  of  English 
grammar,  and  that  the  average  age  of  pupils 
on  entering  is  sixteen  and  one-half  years.  At 
this  age  the  French  boy  is  reading  Cicero,  Vir- 
gil, and  Horace,  Sophocles  and  Plato,  Shakspere 
and  Tennyson,  as  well  as  studying  general  his- 
tory, solid  geometry,  and  chemistry.  His  Ger- 
man contemporary  is  similarly  advance^.  It  is 
very  evident  that  at  this  point  there  is  a  tremen- 
dous waste  in  our  educational  system.  It  must 
be  remedied  and  remedied  speedily,  if  our  higher 
education  is  not  to  be  discredited  altogether. 

What  I  intend  to  include  under  each  of  the 
topics  of  study  above  enumerated  may  be 
briefly  outlined. 

1  English  —  The  study  of  the  mother  tongue 
must  not  be  neglected  by  any  class  of  students. 
But  it  must  be  far  better  taught  than  now  and 
with  a  different  aim.     That  the  instruction  in 


FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY    SCHOOL    165 

English,  both  in  school  and  college,  has  been 
sadly  neglected  and  little  developed  in  the  past, 
will  not  be  denied.  Perhaps  no  one  but  the  col- 
lege professor  who  requires  original  written  work 
from  his  pupils,  knows  how  insufficient  and  in- 
efficient the  English  teaching  in  the  secondary- 
school  is.  A  very  large  proportion  of  those 
students  who  reach  the  baccalaureate  degree 
do  not  possess  the  ability  to  express  with 
accuracy  and  conciseness,  whether  orally  or  in 
writing,  even  a  simple  train  of  thought.  This 
woeful  neglect  of  the  mother  tongue  has  been 
largely  due,  as  Paulsen  points  out  is  the  case  in 
Germany,  to  the  great  preponderance  of  classi- 
cal instruction  and  the  impression  that  this 
afforded  all  the  linguistic  training  necessary. 
We  have  gradually  emancipated  ourselves  from 
the  tyranny  of  this  notion  ;  and  now  the  long- 
neglected  study  of  the  mother  tongue  is  begin- 
ning to  receive  proper  recognition  in  schools  of 
every  grade.  Our  ideals  for  this  study  are  no 
longer  satisfied  by  the  plodding  through  a 
grammar  and  by  the  memorizing  of  a  few  rules 
and  canons  of  rhetoric.  Language  study,  and 
particularly  that  of  a  tongue  so  rich,  so  versa- 


166    FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY  SCHOOL 

tile  and  so  intrinsically  interesting  as  our  own, 
means  far  more  than  that. 

The  general  aim  of  this  instruction  in  the 
secondary  school  should  be  to  impart  a  know- 
ledge of  the  principal  laws  of  structure  and  syn- 
tax, to  develop  ease,  fluency,  and  correctness  in 
speaking  and  writing,  to  point  out  the  principal 
stages  in  the  history  of  English  literature,  and 
to  bring  the  pupil  to  an  acquaintance  with  some 
of  the  great  masterpieces  of  prose  and  verse. 
Wide  but  carefully  chosen  reading  and  frequent 
and  systematic  exercises  in  composition  are  the 
most  efficient  means  of  instruction.  It  should 
be  remarked,  however,  that  composition  writing 
is  valuable  only  if  the  pupil's  work  is  care- 
fully and  intelligently  corrected  and  criticised. 
Otherwise  it  is  a  positive  evil,  for  it  serves  to 
exaggerate  and  make  habitual  faults  already 
present  in  the  use  of  language.  It  is  of  the 
highest  importance  that  the  pupil  should  be 
accustomed  to  hear  correct  English  spoken. 
Downright  inaccuracy  of  speech  should  be  con- 
sidered sufficient  reason  for  a  teacher's  removal. 
A  boy  will  learn  more  evil  in  a  week  from 
a    bad    example    than    he    will    derive    good 


FUNCTION  OF  THE  SECONDARY  SCHOOL     167 

from  a  book  in  a  month.  Most  language  in- 
struction should  be  oral  and  the  pupil  should 
from  the  very  first  take  a  large  part  in  the  ex- 
ercises. As  language  is  but  the  form  and  ex- 
pression of  thought,  care  should  be  taken  to  see 
that  thought  is  always  expressed  by  it.  This 
cannot  be  the  case  if  the  pupil  is  forced  ahead 
either  too  rapidly  or  in  an  unnatural  course. 
The  amount  of  time  proposed  for  this  branch  of 
study  is  therefore  comparatively  large,  and  no 
class  should  be  relieved  of  the  necessity  of 
writing  dictations-exercises  or  compositions  at 
least  as  often  as  once  a  week.  When  this  is 
done  and  done  properly  in  the  secondary  school, 
the  college  instruction  in  English  may  enter 
upon  that  which  really  belongs  to  it,  and  will 
no  longer  be  compelled  to  devote  itself,  as 
now,  almost  wholly  to  what  President  Charles 
Kendall  Adams  once  happily  described  as  "  the 
flagellation  of  bad  English."  Nor  should  it 
be  forgotten  that  the  secondary  school  must 
bear  its  share  in  teaching  pupils  how  and  what 
to  read,  in  the  best  and  deepest  sense  of  that 
phrase.  No  English  instruction  is  entirely 
successful  unless   it  implants  in  every  pupil 


168     FUNCTION  OF  THE  SECONDARY  SCHOOL 

a  love  of  the  masters  of  thought  and  style  and 
a  desire  to  grow  more  and  more  familiar  with 
them. 

2  Geography  and  History  —  These  comple- 
mentary studies,  inseparable  from  each  other 
and  indispensable  to  a  sound  education,  have 
also  been  sadly  neglected  in  the  secondary 
schools.  We  might  truthfully  say  of  the 
Americans,  as  Breal  said  a  few  years  ago  of 
his  fellow  Frenchmen,  that  they  are  celebrated 
for  their  ignorance  of  geography.  The  subject 
has  been  so  badly  taught  that  it  might  almost 
as  well  have  been  passed  over  altogether.  We 
are  now  beginning  to  follow  the  example  set 
us  by  Germany  in  teaching  geography,  and 
perhaps  in  a  few  years  it  will  be  adequately 
presented  in  the  schools.  Geography  has  two 
distinct  aims.  It  seeks  to  point  out  and  de- 
scribe the  character,  the  divisions,  the  climate, 
and  the  configuration  of  the  surface  of  the  globe 
that  we  inhabit,  and  also  to  trace  the  modifi- 
cations which  man  himself  has  made  and  the 
artificial  divisions  that  he  has  marked  off  upon 
it.  When  dealing  with  the  former  questions 
geography  is  physical;  when   considering   the 


FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY   SCHOOL    169 

latter  it  is  political  and  commercial.  It  thus 
occupies  a  position  between  the  natural  and  the 
historical  sciences  and  connects  the  two. 

When  geography  is  properly  taught,  the  child 
is  first  led  to  observe  his  immediate  surround- 
ings. The  points  of  the  compass,  relative  situa- 
tions and  distances,  the  real  significance  of  a  map, 
may  all  be  taught  and  best  taught  with  reference 
to  the  city,  town,  or  village  in  which  the  partic- 
ular school  is  situated.  The  schoolroom  should 
be  well  supplied  with  globes,  relief  maps, 
charts,  and  other  illustrative  material,  in  order 
that,  when  the  pupil  passes  from  the  considera- 
tion of  his  immediate  surroundings  to  that  of 
localities  at  a  distance,  his  understanding  may 
receive  the  assistance  of  these  symbolic  repre- 
sentations. When  political  and  commercial 
geography  is  undertaken,  its  close  relation  with 
history  makes  it  both  advisable  and  necessary 
to  teach  both  subjects  together.  Perhaps  no 
study  that  is  pursued  at  this  age  brings  to  the 
pupil  a  richer  store  of  facts  or  a  greater  in- 
tellectual stimulus  than  do  these.  Historical 
teaching  proper  will  of  course  begin  with  the 
narration  of  the  lives  of  great  men   and   the 


170    FUNCTION  OF  THE  SECONDARY  SCHOOL 

story  of  their  achievements.  About  this  as  a 
nucleus  may  be  grouped  a  considerable  body  of 
facts  and  an  account  of  the  tendencies  set  in 
operation  by  leaders  of  thought  and  action. 
This  mode  of  presentation  familiarizes  the 
pupil  from  the  first  with  the  human  factor, 
the  spiritual  force,  in  history.  The  scope  of 
the  historical  teaching  in  an  American  second- 
ary school  should  include  an  accurate  know- 
ledge of  the  main  facts  in  the  history  of  the 
United  States  and  of  England,  as  well  as  a 
general  acquaintance  with  the  progress  of  uni- 
versal history. 

3  Mathematics  —  Whether  or  not  Sir  Wil- 
liam Hamilton  was  justified  in  his  unfavorable 
judgment  as  to  the  value  of  mathematical 
study,  it  seems  clear  that  our  schools  have 
devoted  too  much  time  to  the  subject.  Un- 
der the  guise  of  mathematics  much  has  been 
taught  that  is  not  mathematics  at  all.  Ab- 
struse and  very  absurd  problems  and  puzzles  in 
logic  are  to  be  found  in  almost  every  mathe- 
matical text-book  under  the  delusive  head- 
ing of  "Examples."  These  simply  vex  and 
discourage   the  student   and   arouse  in  him  a 


■ 


FUNCTION  OF  THE  SECONDARY  SCHOOL    171 

distaste  for  what  is  really  valuable  and  prac- 
tical in  mathematical  study.  They  should  be 
passed  over  entirely,  as  should  also  many  of 
the  complexities  of  commercial  arithmetic,  and 
all  but  three  or  four  of  the  tables  of  weights 
and  measures.  The  metric  system  must  be 
taught  as  a  matter  of  course.  The  elements 
of  plane  geometry  should  precede  algebra  for 
every  reason  known  to  sound  educational 
theory.  It  is  more  fundamental,  it  is  more 
concrete,  and  it  deals  with  things  and  their 
relations  rather  than  with  symbols.  In  the 
form  of  what  the  Germans  call  Raumlehre, 
many  geometrical  facts  would  be  taught  from 
the  first,  in  the  proposed  curriculum,  under 
the  head  of  drawing  and  constructive  work. 
When  the  formal  proofs  of  geometry  are  later 
entered  upon,  they  will  therefore  be  seen  to 
be  easy  and  natural,  rather  than  difficult  and 
wholly  strange.  Good  teaching  in  mathe- 
matics should  enable  the  student  who  follows 
a  classical  course  during  the  last  three  years 
in  the  secondary  school,  to  enter  college  with 
a  good  understanding  of  arithmetic,  algebra 
and    geometry,   both    plane    and    solid.     The 


172    FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY  SCHOOL 

student  selecting  a  scientific  course  in  the 
secondary  school  could  add  to  this  a  know- 
ledge of  analytic  geometry,  of  trigonometry, 
and  perhaps  of  determinants  as  well. 

4  Natural  Science  —  This  is  a  term  of  wide 
and  varying  significance.  As  used  here,  it 
has  two  meanings.  During  the  earlier  years 
of  the  course,  it  is  equivalent  to  the  term 
Naturbeschreibung  as  used  in  German  school- 
programmes.  Applied  to  the  later  years,  it 
means  the  experimental  study  of  chemistry 
and  physics.  In  the  lower  grades  it  is  not 
specifically  physics  or  chemistry  or  geology 
or  botany  or  physiology  or  astronomy  that 
is  studied,  but  something  of  all  these.  The 
subject-matter  is  found  in  the  facts  of  nature 
which  surround  the  child  on  every  hand,  and 
which  should  be  as  familiar  to  him  as  the 
names  he  hears.  This  instruction  aims  to 
open  the  pupil's  eyes,  to  teach  him  how  and 
what  to  see,  and  to  appreciate  what  the  word 
nature  means.  It  is  the  most  fascinating  of 
school  studies ;  and  it  complements  and  runs 
into  almost  every  other  subject. 

5,  6  Latin   and    Greek  —  In   the   secondary 


FUNCTION  OF  THE  SECONDARY  SCHOOL     173 

schools  of  Europe,  Latin  still  occupies  the 
leading  place.  Greek  is  begun  later  than 
Latin,  and  when  the  Latin  is  well  taught 
Greek  needs  less  time  and  effort  for  the  mastery 
of  so  much  of  it  as  is  desirable  during  the 
period  of  secondary  instruction.  Inasmuch  as 
both  serve  practically  the  same  purpose  in 
education,  they  may  properly  be  spoken  of 
under  a  single  head. 

It -seems  quite  safe  to  predict  that  no  cult- 
ure will  ever  be  considered  broad  and  deep 
unless  it  rests  upon  an  understanding  and 
appreciation  of  the  civilizations  of  Greece  and 
Home.  Whether  such  culture  is  necessary  or 
even  desirable  for  the  great  body  of  the  pop- 
ulation, and  whether  the  classics  are  properly 
taught  or  not,  are  very  different  questions 
from  that  which  is  raised  as  to  their  educa- 
tional value.  It  is  only  as  respects  one  or 
the  other  of  the  former  that  recent  criticism 
and  attack  have  been  in  any  degree  success- 
ful. The  classics  have  suffered  from  being 
forced  upon  those  who  cared  nothing  for 
them  and  would  care  nothing.  They  have 
also  suffered,  and  very  severely,  through   the 


174    FUNCTION  OF   THE   SECONDARY   SCHOOL 

waste  of  time  they  have  involved.  But  both 
of  these  objections  may  be  removed  without 
weakening  in  any  degree  the  position  of  the 
classics.  To  the  charge  of  bad  and  wasteful 
methods  of  classical  teaching,  much  of  it  done 
under  the  guise  of  thoroughness,  the  schools 
must  plead  guilty.  They  have  been  endeav- 
oring to  make  philologists  out  of  the  mate- 
rial afforded  by  the  average  schoolboy.  The 
greatest  value  of  the  classics  is  found  in  the 
ability  to  read  and  understand  the  great  poets, 
philosophers,  and  historians  who  wrote  for  all 
time  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  tongues.  The 
boasted  discipline  of  classical  study  for  the 
attention  and  reasoning  powers  may  be  quite 
as  well  obtained  0  from  studies  which  touch 
more  closely  the  practical  life  of  the  great 
mass  of  the  population.  This  argument  is, 
therefore,  not  only  unsound,  but  needless  for 
the  classicist  to  use,  since  he  has  at  his  com- 
mand others  that  are  stronger  and  more  effec- 
tive. To  know  something  of  the  spirit  of 
Sophocles,  Demosthenes,  and  Plato,  of  Cicero, 
Horace,  and  Tacitus,  and  to  understand  the 
civilizations  and  the  points  of  view  that  they 


FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY   SCHOOL    175 

represent,  are,  from  one  point  of  view,  almost 
enough  to  give  the  fortunate  one  a  claim  to  cult- 
ure. The  wearisome  grammatical  drill  and  the 
tedious  reiteration  of  details  that  are  relatively 
of  little  value,  save  in  so  far  as  these  are  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  enable  the  'pupil  to  read 
intelligently,  are  out  of  place  in  secondary  edu- 
cation. The  proper  aim  of  classical  instruction 
at  this  period  is  stated  with  great  clearness  and 
force  in  the  comments  on  the  course  of  study 
furnished  by  the  Prussian  Minister  of  Public 
Instruction  to  the  teachers  in  the  most  suc- 
cessful secondary  school  yet  devised,  the  gym- 
nasium.    The  Minister  says  :  — 

"So  far  as  the  end  to  be  attained  by  a  know- 
ledge of  language  is  concerned,  it  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  adduce  arguments  to  justify  the  proposition 
that  the  acquisition  of  a  vocabulary  is  of  at  least 
as  much  importance  as  familiarity  with  grammati- 
cal details.  For  it  is  just  by  means  of  this  vocabu- 
lary that  satisfaction  is  gained  as  facility  in  reading 
is  acquired ;  by  means  of  it,  too,  interest  in  reading 
extends  beyond  the  period  of  school  life.  The  aim 
of  the  gymnasium  is  not,  however,  attained  when 
the  pupils  are  able  merely  to  read  works  of  a  certain 
degree  of  difficulty.     Emphasis  is  much  rather  to 


176    FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY   SCHOOL 

be  laid  upon  the  fact  that  they  have  read  works  of  a 
certain  scope  and  character,  and  upon  the  manner  in 
which  they  have  read  them.  As  regards  the  method 
of  reading,  two  points  must  be  kept  in  mind;  it 
must  be  based  upon  verbal  accuracy  and  it  must 
lead  to  an  appreciation  of  the  thought  which  is 
expressed  and  the  form  chosen  for  its  expression. 
On  the  former  consideration  rests  the  disciplinary 
value  of  the  classics ;  on  the  latter  the  basis  of  that 
which,  when  fully  developed,  is  designated  as 
classical  culture.  A  treatment  of  this  reading 
which  neglects  grammatical  and  lexical  exactness, 
leads  to  superficiality;  a  treatment  which  makes 
the  acquisition  of  grammatical  and  lexical  exact- 
ness the  main  aim  of  reading,  overlooks  a  funda- 
mental reason  for  the  teaching  of  Latin  in  the 
gymnasium.  Special  attention  must  be  called  to 
this  latter  error,  for  it  endangers  both  the  interest 
of  the  students  in  the  study  of  the  ancient  lan- 
guages and  the  reputation  of  the  gymnasium 
among  its  most  thoughtful  supporters,  by  turning 
the  teaching  of  *the  classics,  even  in  the  highest 
grades,  into  a  mere  repetition  of  grammatical  rules 
and  a  memorizing  of  minute  details  as  to  synonyms 
and  style." 

This  applies  to  the  United  States  quite  as 
well  as  to  Prussia,  and  to  the  study  of  Greek 


FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY   SCHOOL    177 

as  much  as  to  •  that  of  Latin.  When  these 
directions  are  followed  it  will  be  easy  enough 
to  read  considerably  more  of  the  classics  than 
is  now  done  in  the  secondary  schools,  and  to 
do  it  in  the  time  at  the  teacher's  disposal.  It 
may  also  be  observed  that  the  grammatical  de- 
tails of  different  languages,  when  alike,  should 
be  studied  once  for  all  and  not  repeated  for 
every  new  language  taken  up.  Devices  for 
carrying  out  this  suggestion  have  been  pre- 
pared under  the  form  of  parallel  grammars  and 
are  now  used  in  a  few  schools  both  in  this 
country  and  in  Great  Britain. 

As  a  rule  the  classical  teacher  has  not  appre- 
ciated the  changed  educational  conditions  and 
the  new  demands  made  upon  the  schools.  He 
has  therefore  provoked  antagonism  when  he 
should  have  invited  cooperation.  He  must 
recognize  that  while  the  secondary  school  can- 
not dispense  with  the  classics,  it  can  no  longer 
be  completely  dominated  by  them. 

7  French  and  German  —  These  are  indis- 
pensable in  the  secondary  school.  It  was 
Goethe  who  said,  "  A  man  who  knows  only  his 
own    language    does    not    know   even    that." 


178    FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY   SCHOOL 

One  modern  language  should  be  begun  early 
and  studied  continuously  for  several  years. 
To  some  it  may  seem  a  matter  of  indifference 
whether  French  or  German  is  first  taken  up. 
But  French  seems  to  offer  to  the  English- 
speaking  student  more  difficulties  of  pronun- 
ciation and  of  idiom  than  German,  and  should 
therefore  be  begun  before  the  pupil  has  ac- 
quired very  fixed  notions  of  grammatical  and 
rhetorical  canons.  Moreover,  the  relation  be- 
tween French  and  Latin  seems  to  furnish  a 
good  reason  for  making  the  two,  to  a  certain 
extent,  interdependent  and  illustrative,  the  one 
of  the  other.  An  ability  to  read  French,  to 
understand  it  when  spoken,  and  in  some  meas- 
ure to  write  it  and  to  speak  it  having  been 
attained,  the  mastery  of  a  certain  amount  of 
German  will  involve  fewer  difficulties,  and  the 
boy  may  enter  college  or  the  scientific  school 
with  a  good  reading  knowledge,  and  perhaps 
something  more,  of  both  of  these  indispensable 
keys  to  culture ;  or  he  may  postpone  the 
second  modern  language  until  the  college 
period  is  entered  upon. 

8  Drawing  and   Constructive   Work  —  To  in- 


FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY  SCHOOL    179 

troduce  this  subject  generally  into  the  sec- 
ondary schools  of  this  country  would  be  a 
new  departure.  It  is  so,  however,  only  be- 
cause these  schools  have  not  been  doing  their 
duty  by  the  pupils  entrusted  to  them.  Taken 
together,  drawing  and  constructive  work  con- 
stitute what  is  properly  called  manual  training, 
the  educational  value  of  which  has  been  estab- 
lished beyond  all  contravention  both  by  argu- 
ment and  by  experiment.  It  aims  to  develop 
in  the  pupil  powers  of  thought-expression  that 
no  other  study  reaches,  as  well  as  to  train  the 
judgment,  to  call  out  the  executive  powers,  and 
to  give  self-confidence  in  dealing  with  actual 
material.  It  serves  also  to  illustrate  much  of 
the  instruction  in  mathematics  and  in  natural 
science.  Many  secondary  school  pupils  may 
wish  to  follow  manual  training  beyond  the 
mere  rudiments  and  with  more  especial  refer- 
ence to  its  scientific  and  technological  applica- 
tions. 

It  may  be  added,  for  the  sake  of  definite- 
ness,  that  the  constructive  work  will  naturally 
employ  for  its  material  pasteboard,  clay,  soft 
wood,  and  metal,  successively. 


180    FUNCTION  OF  THE  SECONDARY  SCHOOL 

9  Physical  Training  —  For  obvious  reasons 
this  important  subject  finds  a  place  in  every 
part  of  the  course.  More  time  is  to  be  allotted 
to  it  in  the  earlier  years  because  at  that  time  the 
pupil  is  less  accustomed  to  the  confinement  of 
the  schoolroom  and  to  the  strain  of  continuous 
mental  exertion.  At  this  stage,  too,  important 
physical  habits  are  formed,  for  instance  those 
of  breathing,  walking,  and  sitting ;  and  when 
formed  correctly  they  reduce  somewhat  the 
time  necessary  for  systematic  bodily  training. 
Whenever  possible  this  physical  training 
might  be  given  in  the  open  air  of  a  play- 
ground. Such  an  arrangement  not  only 
involves  a  change  of  surroundings  and  conse- 
quent rest  for  the  pupil,  but  it  means  purer  air 
in  the  lungs,  purer  blood  in  the  veins,  and  an 
accompanying  exhilaration  that  is  in  itself  a 
powerful  tonic,  mental  and  physical.  A  valua- 
ble and  indeed  indispensable  accessory  of 
physical  training  is  play,  the  free,  unimpeded, 
wilful  activity  of  the  child.  So  great  is  its 
value  that  many  are  of  opinion  that  it  makes 
systematic  physical  training  unnecessary.  On 
this  point  I  shall  merely  quote  Dr.  Hartwell, 


FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY  SCHOOL    181 

who  seems  to  me  to  have  correctly  expressed 
the  relation  between  play  and  systematic 
exercise  in  his  admirable  address  before  the 
Physical  Training  Conference  held  in  Boston 
in  November,  1889.  Dr.  Hartwell,  in  speak- 
ing of  this  matter,  said  :  — 

"I  have  no  disposition  to  disparage  athletic 
sports.  I  would  that  they  were  more  general  and 
better  regulated  than  they  are  in  our  country.  I 
believe  that  they  are  valuable  as  a  means  of  recrea- 
tion ;  that  they  conduce  to  bodily  growth  and  im- 
provement; and  that  their  moral  effects  are  of 
value,  since  they  call  for  self-subordination,  public 
spirit,  and  cooperative  effort,  and  serve  to  reveal 
the  dominant  characteristics  and  tendencies,  as 
regards  the  temper,  disposition,  and  force  of  will 
of  those  who  engage  in  them.  But  they  bear  so 
indelibly  the  marks  of  their  childish  origin,  they 
are  so  crude  and  unspecialized  as  to  their  methods, 
as  to  render  them  inadequate  for  the  purposes  of  a 
thorough-going  and  broad  system  of  bodily  educa- 
tion. It  is  well  to  promote  them,  and  it  is  becom- 
ing increasingly  necessary  to  regulate  them ;  but  it 
is  unsafe  and  short-sighted  to  consider  them  as 
constituting  anything  more  than  a  single  stage  in 
the  best  bodily  training." 


182      FUNCTION  OF  THE   SECONDARY  SCHOOL 

When  play  and  physical  training  are  thus 
carefully  distinguished,  each  is  seen  to  have 
an  educational  function  of  its  own  and  neither 
will  be  substituted  for  the  other.  Both  are 
necessary  in  education. 

It  is  believed  that  a  course  made  up  of  these 
nine  lines  of  study  well  distributed  will  meet 
all  the  intellectual  wants  of  the  boy  from  his 
eleventh  to  his  eighteenth  year,  and  will  afford 
him  a  harmonious  and  complete  training. 
Whether  the  pupil  enters  an  institution  of 
higher  grade  or  not,  he  will  have  had  an  edu- 
cation substantially  complete  in  itself.  Yet 
for  the  studies  of  a  higher  institution  he  will 
have  received  an  admirable  preparation.  The 
secondary  school  is  in  this  way  enabled  to 
preserve  its  place  in  the  general  educational 
organization  of  the  country  without  sacrificing 
its  independence. 

No  less  a  man  than  Darwin  has  recorded 
the  fact  that  his  school-days,  so  far  as  his 
education  was  concerned,  were  an  utter  blank. 
Not  infrequently  men  of  less  reputation,  but 
yet  prominent  in  their  respective  callings, 
express   a   similar   opinion.      This  in  itself  is 


FUNCTION  OF  THE  SECONDARY  SCHOOL      183 

a  danger  signal  and  must  be  heeded.  The 
school  may  not  with  impunity  remain  long 
out  of  touch  with  the  spirit  which  animates 
the  intellectual  leaders  of  an  age  or  generation. 
Its  task  grows  more  difficult  as  civilization 
grows  more  complex.  "The  most  incessant 
occupation  of  the  human  intellect  throughout 
life,"  said  John  Stuart  Mill  in  his  Inaugural 
Address  as  Rector  of  St.  Andrews  University, 
"  is  the  ascertainment  of  truth."  The  standards 
of  truth  and  the  methods  for  its  discovery  must 
be  revealed  in  and  by  the  process  of  education. 
When  this  process  has  been  carried  so  far  as  to 
entitle  the  resulting  education  to  be  called 
liberal,  as  Huxley  for  example  has  defined 
a  liberal  education,  the  youth  is  prepared  to 
live  not  for  himself  alone,  but  for  the  society  of 
which  he  forms  a  part  and  for  the  race  of 
which  he  is  a  member.  If  the  secondary  school 
fails  to  obtain  this  larger  view,  its  training  will 
hardly  contribute  to  an  education  which  shall 
be,  in  the  language  of  Rollin,  "  the  source  of 
certain  peace  and  happiness  both  in  the  family 
and  in  the  state." 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 
IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 


From  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  March,   1894 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 
IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

It  has  come  to  be  distinctly  recognized  that 
any  far-reaching  educational  reform  in  the 
United  States  must  begin  with  the  secondary 
schools.  The  elementary  school  is  helpless  if 
the  secondary  school  refuses  to  cooperate  with 
it  in  raising  the  standard  of  scholarship  and 
in  improving  the  methods  of  instruction  ;  and 
but  few  colleges  are  strong  enough  to  demand 
of  the  secondary  schools  more  and  better  work 
than  the  latter  are  now  doing.  Persuasion  on 
the  part  of  the  colleges  has  in  some  cases  ac- 
complished a  good  deal,  but  the  improvement 
has  been  limited  either  to  one  or  two  subjects 
of  instruction,  or  to  the  schools  of  a  relatively 
small  territory.  The  secondary  schools  them- 
selves, not  always  conducted  in  a  wise  or  gen- 
erous spirit,  have  too  often  sacrificed  the 
necessities  of  sound  training  to  the  local  de- 
187 


188     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

mand  for  an  ambitious  programme  containing 
twoscore  or  more  school  subjects,  no  one  of 
which  is  pursued  far  enough  or  long  enough 
for  the  pupil  to  derive  from  it  the  educational 
value  it  possesses.  Or  they  have  erred  on  the 
other  side,  and  in  their  devotion  to  a  past  ideal 
have  excluded  from  the  curriculum  important 
fields  of  knowledge  that  have  grown  up  within 
a  century.  Thus  the  secondary  school  has  ap- 
peared to  many  observers  not  only  to  scatter 
a  pupil's  energies  and  interests,  but  to  delay 
him  unduly.  The  consequence  is,  as  President 
Eliot  showed  very  clearly  several  years  ago, 
that  the  American  boy  of  fifteen  or  sixteen, 
no  whit  inferior  to  his  French  or  German 
fellow  in  native  ability,  is  from  two  to  three 
years  behind  him  in  acquired  knowledge. 

To  remedy  so  apparent  an  evil  as  this  would 
be  an  easy  task  in  France  or  in  Prussia.  The 
minister  of  education  would  consult  his  official 
advisers,  and  call  the  leading  educational  ex- 
perts to  his  council ;  in  a  few  weeks  an  order 
would  issue  prescribing  for  the  schools  a  new 
and  reformed  procedure.  In  this  way  Lehr- 
plane  and  Lehraufgaben  for  the  higher  schools 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION     189 

of  Prussia  were  issued  in  1882,  and  again  in 
1892.  Similarly,  in  1890  the  existing  Plan 
d'Etudes  et  Programmes  of  the  secondary 
schools  in  France  was  promulgated.  In  this 
country,  however,  where  no  central  educational 
administration  exists,  and  where  bureaucracy 
is  not  popular,  educational  reforms  can  be 
brought  about  only  by  persuasion  and  coopera- 
tion, for  no  official  and  no  institution  is  em- 
powered to  dictate  to  us.  The  press,  the  plat- 
form, the  teachers'  meeting,  must  be  availed  of 
to  put  forward  new  ideas  ;  and  men  and  women 
in  large  numbers  must  be  reasoned  with  and 
convinced  in  order  to  secure  their  acceptance. 
For  secondary  education,  and  through  it  for 
our  educational  organization  generally,  a  long 
step  has  been  taken  in  this  direction  by  the 
proceedings  that  led  up  to  the  appointment, 
by  the  National  Educational  Association,  of 
the  Committee  of  Ten  on  secondary  school 
studies,  and  by  the  exceedingly  valuable  re- 
port which  that  committee  has  now  laid  before 
the  public.1 

1  Published  for  the  National  Educational  Association,  by 
the  American  Book  Company  (New  York,  1894). 


190     REFOKM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

For  thirty  years  the  National  Educational 
Association  has  been  known  as  a  large  body 
of  teachers  that  assembled  annually  to  listen 
to  addresses  and  discussions  of  more  or  less 
practical  value.  It  has  come  to  command  an 
attendance  of  as  many  as  sixteen  thousand 
teachers,  of  all  classes  and  from  every  section 
of  the  country.  Its  power  and  authority  have 
increased  with  its  size  and  its  representative 
character.  In  1892,  the  directors  of  this  asso- 
ciation determined  to  pass  from  the  field  of 
mere  discussion,  and  begin  an  educational  in- 
vestigation, under  their  own  auspices  and  paid 
for  out  of  their  own  funds,  that  should  result 
in  some  practical  gain  to  the  country  at  large. 
They  accepted  the  suggestion,  made  to  them 
after  careful  deliberation,  that  the  problems 
connected  with  secondary  education  should  be 
vigorously  and  systematically  attacked,  and 
appointed  a  committee,  which  has  come  to  be 
known  as  the  Committee  of  Ten,  to  take  full 
charge  of  the  task,  at  the  same  time  appropri- 
ating twenty-five  hundred  dollars  to  pay  the 
expenses  of  the  work.  The  members  of  this 
committee  were  carefully  selected  with  a  view 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION    191 

to  giving  representation  to  the  types  of  edu- 
cational organization  most  interested,  and  to 
the  various  sections  of  the  country.1 

The  committee  was  made  up  of  one  presi- 
dent of  an  Eastern  university,  two  presidents 
of  Western  state  universities  and  one  of  a 
Southern  state  university,  one  president  of  a 
college  for  women,  one  professor  in  a  Western 
college  open  to  both  sexes,  one  head-master 
of  an  endowed  academy,  one  principal  of 
a  public  high  school  for  both  sexes,  one 
principal  of  a  public  high  school  for  girls 
only,  and  the  Commissioner  of  Education, 
whose  familiarity  with  the  principles  and 
practice   of   education   in   every   part   of   the 

1  The  members  of  the  committee  were  :  President  Charles 
W.  Eliot,  of  Harvard  University,  chairman ;  Dr.  W.  T. 
Harris,  Commissioner  of  Education ;  President  James  B. 
Angell,  of  the  University  of  Michigan  ;  President  James  M. 
Taylor,  of  Vassar  College ;  Mr.  John  Tetlow,  Principal  of 
the  Girls'  High  and  Latin  Schools,  Boston,  Mass. ;  Mr.  O.  D. 
Robinson,  Principal  of  the  Albany  (N.  Y.)  High  School; 
President  James  H.  Baker,  of  the  University  of  Colorado ; 
President  Richard  H.  Jesse,  of  the  University  of  Missouri ; 
Mr.  James  C.  MacKenzie,  Head-Master  of  the  Lawrenceville 
(N.  J.)  School ;  and  Professor  Henry  C.  King,  of  Oberlin 
College. 


192     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

United  States  gave  representation  indirectly 
both  to  the  elementary  school  interests  and 
to  the  special  students  of  education. 

The  procedure  adopted  by  the  Committee 
of  Ten  is  fully  described  in  the  report  to 
which  it  is  the  object  of  this  paper  to  direct 
attention.     It  may  be  briefly  stated  thus :  — 

After  a  study  of  the  whole  problem,  it  was 
decided  to  appoint  nine  conferences  of  ten 
members  each,  —  one  conference  for  each  of 
the  main  divisions  of  work  that  fall  properly 
to  the  secondary  school.  The  members  of  the 
conferences  were  selected  equally,  as  nearly 
as  possible,  from  college  and  school  instructors 
who  had  attained  a  reputation  in  connection 
with  the  subject  of  their  conference,  due  re- 
gard being  had  also  to  the  representation  of 
various  educational  interests  and  the  several 
sections  of  the  country.  Conferences  were 
appointed,  therefore,  on  Latin ;  Greek ;  Eng- 
lish ;  other  modern  languages ;  mathemat- 
ics ;  physics,  astronomy,  and  chemistry  ; 
natural  history  (biology,  including  botany, 
zoology,  and  physiology) ;  history,  civil  gov- 
ernment,  and   political   economy ;     and  geog- 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION     193 

raphy  (physical  geography,  geology,  and 
meteorology).  The  several  conferences  as- 
sembled in  December,  1892,  at  convenient 
points,  and  eighty-eight  of  the  ninety  members 
were  in  attendance.  Of  these  eighty-eight, 
forty-six  were  in  the  service  of  colleges  and 
universities,  forty-one  in  the  service  of  schools, 
and  one  was  a  government  official  formerly  in 
the  service  of  a  university.  So  admirable  are 
the  lists  of  members  of  these  conferences  that 
it  is  difficult  to  speak  of  them  without  enthu- 
siasm. Among  the  ninety  names  will  be  found 
many  that  stand  in  the  foremost  rank  of  Amer- 
ican scholarship ;  and  no  one  of  the  ninety 
was  without  valuable  educational  experience 
of  some  kind.  This  fact  of  itself  gives  great 
weight  to  their  recommendations;  and  their 
exhaustive  reports,  which  are  appended  to  the 
Report  of  the  Committee  of  Ten,  are  a  mine 
of  educational  information  and  suggestion  of 
the  utmost  value. 

The  nine  conferences  were  in  session  for 
three  days,  and  addressed  themselves  to  the 
task  of  preparing  answers  to  the  searching 
questions  submitted  to  them  by  the  Committee 


194     REFORM  OF   SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

of  Ten.  These  questions,  eleven  in  number, 
were  as  follows  :  — 

"  (1)  In  the  school  course  of  study,  ex- 
tending approximately  from  the  age  of  six 
years  to  eighteen  years,  —  a  course  including 
the  periods  of  both  elementary  and  secondary 
instruction,  —  at  what  age  should  the  study 
which  is  the  subject  of  the  Conference  be  first 
introduced  ? 

"  (2)  After  it  is  introduced,  how  many 
hours  a  week  for  how  many  years  should  be 
devoted  to  it? 

"  (3)  How  many  hours  a  week  for  how 
many  years  should  be  devoted  to  it  during  the 
last  four  years  of  the  complete  course ;  that 
is,  during  the  ordinary  high  school  period? 

"  (4)  What  topics,  or  parts,  of  the  subject 
may  reasonably  be  covered  during  the  whole 
course  ? 

"  (5)  What  topics,  or  parts,  of  the  subject 
may  best  be  reserved  for  the  last  four  years? 

"  (6)  In  what  form  and  to  what  extent 
should  the  subject  enter  into  college  require- 
ments for  admission?  Such  questions  as  to 
the  sufficiency  of  translation  at  sight  as  a  test 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION     195 

of  knowledge  of  a  language,  or  the  superiority 
of  a  laboratory  examination  in  a  scientific  sub- 
ject to  a  written  examination  on  a  text-book, 
are  intended  to  be  suggested  under  this  head 
by  the  phrase  'in  what  form.' 

"  (7)  Should  the  subject  be  treated  differ- 
ently for  pupils  who  are  going  to  college,  for 
those  who  are  going  to  a  scientific  school, 
and  for  those  who,  presumably,  are  going  to 
neither  ? 

"  (8)  At  what  stage  should  this  differentia- 
tion begin,  if  any  be  recommended? 

"  (9)  Can  any  description  be  given  of  the 
best  method  of  teaching  this  subject  through- 
out the  school  course? 

"  (10)  Can  any  description  be  given  of  the 
best  mode  of  testing  attainments  in  this  sub- 
ject at  college  admission  examinations? 

"  (11)  For  those  cases  in  which  colleges 
and  universities  permit  a  division  of  the  ad- 
mission examinations  into  a  preliminary  and  a 
final  examination,  separated  by  at  least  a  year, 
can  the  best  limit  between  the  preliminary  and 
final  examinations  be  approximately  defined?" 

The  first  impression  produced  by  a  study 


196     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

of  the  reports  of  the  special  conferences  is 
that  their  members  addressed  themselves  to 
their  task  with  marked  skill  and  directness. 
The  questions  submitted  to  them  are  answered, 
and  answered  fully,  and  the  answers  are  ac- 
companied with  the  reasons  therefor.  From 
the  standpoint  of  the  old-fashioned  prepara- 
tory schoolmaster,  ignorant  alike  of  the  newer 
school  subjects  and  of  the  newer  methods  of 
imparting  life  to  the  old  ones,  the  changes 
urged  by  the  conferences  may  seem  many  and 
radical.  Yet  it  will  be  difficult  to  disprove 
the  deliberate  conclusion  of  the  Committee  of 
Ten  that,  on  the  whole,  the  spirit  of  the  con- 
ferences was  conservative  and  moderate.  For 
example,  the  Latin  conference  distinctly  dis- 
claim any  desire  to  see  the  college  admission 
requirements  in  Latin  increased.  The  Greek 
conference  prefer  to  see  the  average  age  of 
entrance  to  college  lowered  rather  than  raised. 
The  mathematics  conference  recommend  the 
actual  abridging  of  the  time  now  devoted  to 
arithmetic,  algebra,  and  geometry.  The  geog- 
raphy conference  agree  that  the  time  now 
spent  upon  that  subject  in  the  schools  is  out 


REFORM   OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION     197 

of  all  proportion  to  the  value  of  the   results 
secured. 

As  a  matter  of  course,  the  conferences 
that  dealt  with  the  modern  languages  and 
the  several  departments  of  natural  science 
had  the  largest  amount  of  work  to  do. 
Greek,  Latin,  and  mathematics  have  been  sta- 
ple school  subjects  for  generations.  They  are 
carefully  organized  and  graded.  Adequate 
text-books  are  provided.  A  large  body  of 
teaching  experience  lies  behind  each  of  them. 
Of  the  other  subjects  this  is  not  true.  They 
appear  only  sporadically  in  schools.  Too 
often  they  are  taught  badly,  and  their  edu- 
cational value  is  lost.  The  conferences  deal- 
ing with  the  modern  subjects  make  it  clear, 
in  every  case,  how  these  evils  may  be 
avoided ;  but  their  reports  are  correspond- 
ingly longer  and  more  minute  than  those 
on  the  other  subjects.  The  conference  on 
physics,  astronomy,  and  chemistry,  for  ex- 
ample, append  to  their  report  an  elaborate 
outline  of  experiments  to  be  performed  and 
topics  to  be  taught  in  the  secondary  school. 
The    reports    from    the    conferences    on    his- 


198     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

tory,  civil  government,  and  political  econ- 
omy, geography,  and  natural  history  are 
similarly  detailed. 

The  recommendations  of  the  conference 
on  English  will  naturally  be  turned  to  first ; 
for  the  tendency  to  emphasize  the  importance 
of  the  study  of  the  mother  tongue,  and  to 
improve  the  methods  of  teaching  it,  is  now 
too  strong  and  too  general  to  be  resisted,  if 
indeed  any  one  wishes  to  resist  it.  The 
report  of  this  conference  is  very  short,  but 
it  is  extremely  clear  and  cogent.  In  sub- 
stance, it  says  that  the  proper  use  of  Eng- 
lish can  be  gained  only  by  using  it  properly 
in  exercises  of  increasing  difficulty  and  vari- 
ety. The  spelling-book  is  discountenanced. 
Formal  grammar  is  relegated  to  the  subor- 
dinate place  that  it  deserves.  The  reading- 
book  should  contain  real  literature,  and  not 
articles  on  physical  science  or  natural  his- 
tory, and  but  little  sentimental  poetry.  In 
the  high  school  it  is  held  that  English  should 
have  as  much  time  allotted  to  it  as  Latin, 
and  that  the  two  points  to  be  kept  con- 
stantly in    mind,    in    the    teaching,    are    the 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION     199 

study  of  literature  and  training  in  the  ex- 
pression of  thought.  All  this  advice  is  so 
sound  that,  being  now  given  a  quasi-official 
authority,  it  should  be  followed  generally 
in  the  secondary  schools,  both  public  and 
private. 

The  fact  that  education  cannot  be  cut  up 
into  artificial  periods  distinct  in  themselves 
is  brought  out  by  almost  every  conference. 
They  agree  in  saying  that  the  elementary 
school  must  improve,  and  must  cooperate 
with  the  secondary  school,  if  the  latter  is  to 
meet  the  demands  now  made  upon  it.  Eng- 
lish teaching  cannot  be  neglected  from  six 
to  thirteen,  if  good  results  in  it  are  to  be 
obtained  from  thirteen  to  seventeen.  It  is 
facts  like  this  that  give  the  reports  of  the 
conferences  their  chief  significance.  Though 
dealing  ostensibly  and  directly  with  second- 
ary education  only,  they  reach  every  nook 
and  corner  of   the  elementary  school  as  well. 

It  is  extremely  encouraging,  also,  to  find 
the  nine  conferences  and  the  Committee  of 
Ten,  one  hundred  teachers  in  all,  in  cordial 
agreement    on    many   points    of    fundamental 


200     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

importance.  It  is  laid  down,  for  instance, 
that  no  school  subject  should  be  taught  in 
different  ways  to  pupils  who  are  going  to 
college,  to  a  scientific  school,  or  to  neither. 
If  a  pupil  studies  algebra  or  Latin,  he  should 
study  it  in  the  same  way  and  to  the  same 
extent,  during  the  time  that  he  studies  it, 
whether  he  is  to  enter  Harvard  or  Yale,  the 
Institute  of  Technology  or  the  Rensselaer 
Polytechnic,  or  a  merchant's  office.  On  this 
point  there  is  not  a  single  dissenting  voice. 
This  one  principle,  if  followed  in  the  sec- 
ondary schools,  would  immensely  simplify 
their  programmes  and  decrease  the  cost  of 
their  instruction. 

The  conferences  agree,  again,  —  excepting 
the  Greek  conference,  the  members  of  which 
had  no  reason  for  dealing  with  the  subject, 
—  that  much  work  now  taken  up  for  the 
first  time  in  the  secondary  school  should 
be  begun  in  the  elementary  school.  For 
instance,  one  foreign  language,  history,  alge- 
bra, and  geometry  are  all  capable  of  excel- 
lent use  in  the  upper  grades  of  elementary 
schools,   and   are   already  to   be   found    there 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION     201 

in  some  of  the  more  progressive  cities  of  the 
country.  The  discussion  on  shortening  and 
enriching  the  school  curriculum,  begun  so 
recently,  has  already  accomplished  this. 

The  four  conferences  on  language  study 
and  the  three  on  natural  science  also  agree 
among  themselves  as  to  the  best  methods  of 
teaching.  The  former  are  a  unit  in  desir- 
ing reading  aloud  in  the  language  to  be 
studied,  the  association  of  writing  the  lan- 
guage with  translating  from  it,  and  the  care- 
ful correction  of  translation,  in  order  to 
secure  in  it  the  use  of  accurate  and  idio- 
matic English.  The  three  scientific  confer- 
ences come  to  a  like  agreement.  They  all 
believe  that  laboratory  teaching  is  better, 
than  text-book  teaching,  and  that  the  inspec- 
tion of  laboratory  notebooks  should  be  com- 
bined with  written  examinations,  in  testing 
a  pupil's  attainments. 

The  last,  and  most  important,  point  of 
agreement  among  the  conferences  relates  to 
the  coordination  of  the  studies  in  the  cur- 
riculum. Neither  the  Committee  of  Ten  nor 
the    conferences    contained    a    single    person 


202     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

who  may  be  classed  as  a  follower  of  the 
Herbartian  educational  theory,  as  exempli- 
fied by  Ziller,  Stoy,  and  Rein ;  yet  by  purely 
empirical  methods  the  committee  and  the 
conferences  arrive  at  a  striking  confirma- 
tion of  one  of  the  main  doctrines  of  the 
Herbartian  school,  the  coordination  and  cor- 
relation of  studies.  The  scientific  confer- 
ences show  how  the  practice  of  writing 
accurate  descriptions  of  observations  and 
experiments  contributes  to  the  acquirement 
of  a  clear,  simple  English  style.  The  con- 
ference on  history  wish  to  have  that  subject 
always  associated  with  the  study  of  geogra- 
phy, and  the  conference  on  the  latter  subject 
agree  with  them.  The  English  conference 
explicitly  ask  that  the  study  of  the  mother 
tongue  and  its  literature  be  supplemented  by 
that  of  the  history  and  geography  of  the 
English-speaking  race. 

Taking  these  points  alone,  and  passing 
over  the  numerous  questions  of  detail  on 
which  the  conferences  pronounce,  we  have 
a  considerable  body  of  educational  doctrine 
that   is   sound  to  the   core,    and    that   applies 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION    203 

to  one  school  and  to  one  stage  of  educa- 
tion as  well  as  to  another.  Principals  of 
schools,  teachers  of  special  subjects,  and 
students  of  education  will  examine  and 
weigh  carefully  every  recommendation  of 
the  conferences,  however  minute ;  but  the 
general  reader  and  the  intelligent  parent 
wish  most  of  all  to  gain  an  idea  of  what  is 
unanimously,  or  even  generally  agreed  upon. 
That  question  is  substantially  answered  in 
the  foregoing  summary  of  the  conference 
reports. 

To  study  carefully  the  several  conference 
reports,  and  to  base  upon  them  a  general  rec- 
ommendation to  the  country,  was  the  more 
difficult  part  of  the  task  of  the  Committee  of 
Ten.  Any  recommendation,  to  be  tangible, 
must  of  course  include  a  schedule  showing 
how  a  school  can  arrange  its  programme  so 
as  to  carry  out  the  ideal  of  the  committee. 
Four  such  schedules,  or  tables,  are  given  by 
the  committee  ;  and  while  not  perfect,  —  what 
school  programme  is?  —  they  are  extremely 
suggestive.  The  first  table  is  not  a  pro- 
gramme, but  an  ordered  arrangement,  by  topics 


204     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

and  school  years,  of  all  of  the  recommendations 
of  the  nine  conferences.  It  offers  material 
for  an  indefinite  number  of  programmes.  The 
second  table  is  given  to  test  the  practical  char- 
acter of  the  conference  recommendations.  It 
includes  them  all  in  a  four  years'  course,  adding 
to  each  subject  the  number  of  weekly  periods 
to  be  allotted  to  it.  When  this  is  done,  it  is 
found  that  for  three-fourths  of  the  course 
much  more  is  demanded  than  any  one  pupil  can 
follow,  but  —  and  this  is  the  important  point  — 
not  more  than  a  school  can  teach.  The  ne- 
cessary consequence  is  that  there  must  be  in 
the  high  school  a  choice  or  election  of  studies. 
In  a  small  school,  this  choice  will  be  made 
by  the  principal,  who  will  say :  "  With  the 
staff  at  my  command,  I  can  teach  only  five 
subjects  of  those  proposed  by  the  conferences, 
in  the  manner  recommended.  My  school  shall 
therefore  be  limited  to  those  five."  Larger 
and  richer  schools  can  teach  more,  or  perhaps 
all  of  the  subjects ;  and  then  the  choice  among 
them  will  be  made  by  the  pupil.  This  choice 
is  necessary,  as  the  Committee  of  Ten  is  care- 
ful to  point  out,  to  thoroughness,  and  to  the 


REFORM  OF   SECONDARY   EDUCATION    205 

imparting  of  power  as  distinguished  from  mere 
information ;  for  any  large  subject  whatever, 
to  yield  its  training  value,  must  be  pursued 
through  several  years,  from  three  to  five  times 
a  week. 

The  committee's  third  table  is  based  on  the 
second,  but  uses  four  as  the  standard  number 
of  weekly  periods  of  study  for  each  subject, 
except  in  the  first  year  of  a  new  language. 
Further  reference  to  this  table  is  unnecessary. 

The  fourth  table  submitted  is  of  great 
interest,  for  in  it  the  committee,  after  due 
deliberation,  makes  its  own  selection  out  of  all 
the  material  and  suggestions  supplied  by  the 
conferences,  and  submits  specimen  standard 
programmes  of  secondary  school  work.  It 
would.be  a  grave  error  to  dismiss  this  ques- 
tion of  a  specific  programme  as  one  involving 
mere  detail  that  might  be  left  to  any  principal 
or  superintendent  of  schools.  The  Committee 
of  Ten  itself  dissents  strongly  from  that  view ; 
for  it  believes  that  to  establish  just  proportions 
between  the  several  subjects,  or  groups  of 
allied  subjects,  it  is  essential  that  each  prin- 
cipal  subject  shall  be  taught  adequately  and 


206     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

extensively,  and  therefore  proper  provision  for 
it  must  be  made  in  the  programme.  As  the 
committee  says :  "  The  method  of  estimating 
the  amount  of  instruction  offered  in  any  sub- 
ject by  the  number  of  recitation  periods  as- 
signed to  it  each  week  for  a  given  number 
of  years  or  half  years  is  in  some  respects  an 
inadequate  one,  for  it  takes  no  account  of 
the  scope  and  intensity  of  the  instruction  given 
during  the  periods ;  but  so  far  as  it  goes  it 
is  trustworthy  and  instructive.  It  represents 
with  tolerable  accuracy  the  proportional  ex- 
penditure which  a  school  is  making  on  a  given 
subject ;  therefore  the  proportional  importance 
which  the  school  attaches  to  that  subject.  It 
also  represents,  roughly,  the  proportion  of  the 
pupil's  entire  school  time  which  he  can  devote 
to  a  given  subject,  provided  he  is  free  to  take 
all  the  instruction  offered  in  that  subject.  All 
experience  shows  that  subjects  deemed  impor- 
tant get  a  large  number  of  weekly  periods, 
while  those  deemed  unimportant  get  a  smaller 
number.  Moreover,  if  the  programme  time 
assigned  to  a  given  subject  be  insufficient,  the 
value  of  that  subject  as  training  cannot  be  got, 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION    207 

no  matter  how  good  the  quality  of  the  instruc- 
tion." 

In  framing  the  suggestive  programmes,  the 
Committee  of  Ten  proceeded  upon  some  gen- 
eral principles  that  are  of  great  significance. 
In  the  first  place,  it  endeavored  to  postpone 
to  as  late  a  period  as  possible  the  grave  choice 
between  a  classical  and  what  is  generally 
known  as  a  Latin-scientific  course.  Very  fre- 
quently this  choice  determines  a  boy's  future 
career,  and  it  is  important  that  it  be  made 
not  only  late  in  the  school  course,  but  after 
excursions  into  all  the  principal  fields  of 
knowledge  have  discovered  the  boy's  tastes 
and  exhibited  his  qualities.  A  second  prin- 
ciple is  that  each  year  of  the  secondary 
school  course  should  be,  so  far  as  may  be, 
complete  in  itself,  and  not  made  wholly  de- 
pendent on  what  is  to  follow.  This  is  essen- 
tial, because  thousands  of  pupils  are  obliged 
to  leave  the  high  school  after  one  or  two  years, 
and  during  that  time  linguistic,  historical, 
mathematical,  and  scientific  subjects  should 
all  be  presented  to  them  in  an  adequate  man- 
ner.    It   is  also   important   that  provision  be 


208     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY   EDUCATION 

made  so  that  each  subject  may  be  treated  in 
the  same  way  for  all  pupils  who  take  it ;  that 
time  enough  be  given  to  each  subject  to  gain 
from  it  the  training  it  is  able  to  give ;  that 
the  different  principal  subjects  be  put  upon 
an  approximate  equality  in  the  matter  of  time- 
allotment  ;  that  all  short  courses  given  for 
purposes  of  information  only  be  excluded  ;  and 
that  the  instruction  in  each  of  the  main  lines 
—  namely,  language,  history,  science,  and 
mathematics  —  be  continuous.  With  all  of 
these  principles  in  mind,  the  Committee  of  Ten 
framed  the  four  specimen  programmes  given  on 
the  three  following  pages,  the  names  by  which 
they  are  designated  being  based  on  the  amount 
and  character  of  foreign  language  study  in  each. 
In  adopting  twenty  as  the  maximum  num- 
ber of  weekly  periods  of  school  work,  the  com- 
mittee had  two  qualifications  in  mind :  first, 
that  at  least  five  of  the  twenty  should  be  given 
to  unprepared  work  ;  secondly,  that  laboratory 
subjects  should  have  double  periods  whenever 
that  prolongation  is  possible.  Such  subjects 
as  music,  drawing,  and  elocution,  often  found 
in  secondary  schools,  are  purposely  omitted  from 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION     209 


3 

I 

Classical 

Three  Foreign    Languages   (one 

Modern) 

II 

Latik-Scikntifio 

Two  Foreign   Languages  (one 

Modern) 

1 

Algebra     ....    4  p. 
Physical  Geography    3  p. 

Physical   Geography    3  p. 

20  p. 

20  p. 

2 

German2  [or  French] 

begun     ....    4  p. 
Geometry  ....     3  p. 

History      ....     3  p. 

German  [or  French] 

begun      ....     4  p. 
Geometry  ....    3  p. 

Botany  or  Zoology  .    3  p. 

20  p. 

20  p. 

3 

Greek2 5  p. 

German  [or  French]     4  p. 

Mathematics 
Algebra,     21            4 
Geometry,  2  /  *     '    *  p< 

German  [or  French]  4  p. 
Mathematics 

Algebra,     2\            . 

Geometry  ,2  /  "  '  p- 
Astronomy  (J  year) 

and     Meteorology 

(Jyr.)    .     .     .     .     3  p. 

20  p. 

20  p. 

1  Weekly  periods. 

2  In  any  school  in  which  Greek  can  be  better  taught  than 
a  modern  Umgnage,  or  in  which  local  public  opinion  or  the 
history  of  the  school  makes  it  desirable  to  teach  Greek  in  an 
ample  way,  Greek  may  be  substituted  for  German  or  French 
in  the  second  year  of  the  classical  programme. 


210     EEFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 


I 

II 

9 

Classical 

Latin -Scientific 

Three  Foreign  Languages  (one 

Two  Foreign   Languages 

one 

Modern) 

Modern) 

4  p. 

4  p. 

5  p. 

English 

2  p. 

as  in  Classical,  2  \ 
additional,         2  J 

4  p. 

German  [or  French] 

3  p. 

Chemistry .... 

3  p. 

German  [or  French] 

3  p. 

Trigonometry      and 

Chemistry  .... 

3  p. 

4 

Higher     Algebra, 

Trigonometry      and 

or  History  .    .     . 

3  p. 

Higher      Algebra, 

or  History  .     .     . 

3  p. 

Geology  or  Physiog- 

raphy (£yr.),  and 

Anatomy,    Physi- 

ology, and  Hygiene 

(Jyr.)     .     .     .     . 

3  p. 

20  p. 

20  p. 

m 
3 

a 

III 

Modern  Languages 

Two  Foreign  Languages  (both 

Modern) 

IV 

English 

One  Foreign  Language  (Ancient 

or  Modern) 

1 

French  [or  German] 
begun     ....     5  p. 

Algebra      ....     4  p. 
History      ....     4  p. 
Physical  Geography    3  p. 

Latin,  or  German,  or 
French    ....     6  p. 

Physical   Geography    3  p. 

20  p. 

20  p. 

2 

French  [or  German] 

German  [or  French] 

begun     ....     5  p. 
Geometry  ....     3  p. 
Physics      ....     3  p. 
Botany  or  Zoology  .     3  p. 

Latin,  or  German, 

or  French    .     .  6  or  4  p. 
English  .     .     .     .  3  or  5  p. 
Geometry  ....     3  p. 

Botany  or  Zoology  .     3  p. 

20  p. 

20  p. 

REFORM  OF   SECONDARY   EDUCATION     211 


3 

III 

Modern  Languagxs 

Two  Foreign   Languages  (both 

Modern) 

IV 

English 

One  Foreign  Language  (Ancient 

or  Modern) 

8 

French  [or  German]    4  p. 

German  [or  French]     4  p. 

Mathematics 
Algebra,     2 )             , 
Geometry,  2  /  *     '     *  p' 

Astronomy  ($  year) 
and    Meteorology 
(*yr.)    .     .     .     .     3  p. 

Latin,  or  German,  or 
French    ....     4  p. 

English 
as  in  others,  3  \        K 
additional,     2/    '    °  p* 

Mathematics 
Algebra,     21             . 
Geometry,  2  /  "     '        v' 

Astronomy   (J    yr.) 
and     Meteorology 
(Jyr.)    .     .     .     .    3  p. 

History 
as  in  Latin-Scien-  > 

tific,                 2  V    3  p. 
additional,         2 ) 

20  p. 

30  p. 

4 

French  [or  German]    3  p. 

English 
as  in  Classical,  2  \     . 
additional,        2  J         p* 

German  [or  French]    4  p. 

Chemistry ....     3  p. 

Trigonometry      and 
Higher     Algebra, 
or  History .     .     .     3  p. 

Geology  or  Physiog- 
raphy (J  yr.  and 
Anatomy,    Physi- 
ology, and  Hygiene 
(Jyr.)    .     .     .     .     3  p. 

Latin,  or  German,  or 
French    ....     4  p. 

English 
as  in  Classical,  2  \      , 
additional,        2  /        p* 

Chemistry  .    •    .     .     3  p. 

Trigonometry  and 
Higher  Algebra     .     3  p. 

Geology  or  Physiog- 
raphy (£  yr.),  and 
Anatomy,  Physi- 
ology, and  Hygiene 
(Jyr.)    .    .    .     .    3  p. 

20  p. 

20  p. 

212     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

the  programmes,  it  being  left  to  local  authorities 
to  determine  how  they  shall  be  introduced. 

Inspection  will  show  how  carefully  the  pro- 
grammes have  been  framed  with  reference  to 
being  carried  out  economically  in  a  single 
school.  With  few  exceptions,  the  several  sub- 
jects occur  simultaneously  in  at  least  three  of 
the  four  programmes,  and  with  the  same  num- 
ber of  weekly  periods  allotted  to  them.  From 
a  practical  point  of  view  this  is  a  most  impor- 
tant arrangement.  Some  minor  difficulties 
were  caused  by  adhering  to  the  rule  laid  down 
by  all  of  the  language  conferences,  namely, 
that  two  foreign  languages  should  not  be 
begun  at  the  same  time,  and  by  limiting  the 
course  to  four  years.  A  six  years'  programme 
would  be  far  easier  to  construct. 

Critical  examination  of  the  committee's  pro- 
grammes discloses  grave  defects  in  the  most 
important  of  all,  the  classical,  —  which  does  not 
provide  continuous  study  in  science,  for  that 
great  department  is  not  represented  in  the 
third  year  at  all.  History  is  similarly  inter- 
fered with,  and  there  would  also  be  a  break  in 
the  mathematical  course  if  the  option  given  in 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION     213 

the  fourth  year  were  exercised  in  favor  of  his- 
tory. The  difficulty  lies,  I  believe,  in  trying 
to  include  history  in  a  four  years'  classical 
course.  The  classics  themselves  teach  history 
in  an  admirable  way,  if  the  instruction  is 
good.  A  wealth  of  historical  knowledge  is 
grouped  about  the  reading  of  Caesar,  Cicero, 
and  Virgil,  Xenophon  and  Homer,  the  usual 
secondary  school  authors ;  and  in  those  which 
are  themselves  professedly  historical,  a  great 
gain  would  follow  from  more  thorough  study 
of  the  subject  matter.  If  history,  then,  were 
dropped  entirely  from  this  programme,  a  mod- 
ern language  could  be  begun  in  the  first  sec- 
ondary school  year,  the  English  course  extended 
in  the  second  year,  and  no  break  in  the  science 
instruction  would  be  necessary. 

Defects  in  the  other  programmes  exist,  but 
they  are  not  so  glaring  as  those  just  pointed 
out  in  the  classical.  For  instance,  there  is  no 
continuity  in  the  history  course  of  the  Latin- 
scientific  or  modern  language  programme  ;  and 
in  both  of  the  last-named  there  would  be  a 
break  in  the  mathematics  course  also,  should 
the  pupil  exercise  his  option  in  favor  of  history. 


214     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

The  following  table  discloses  at  a  glance  in 
what  relation  the  four  programmes  stand  to 
each  of  the  four  great  divisions  of  secondary 
school  study.  The  figures  in  the  several  col- 
umns represent  the  total  number  of  weekly 
periods  given  during  the  entire  four  years,  in 
each  of  the  four  programmes,  to  the  main  sub- 
jects. No  scheme  can  be  called  radical  that  pro- 
poses to  give  52.5  per  cent  of  all  secondary  edu- 
cation whatsoever  to  language  study,  or,  adding 
history,  62.8  per  cent  to  the  so-called  humanities. 
That  this  would  be  the  result  of  following  the 
committee's  recommendations  the  table  shows. 


H 

o 

E 

a 

£  5 

«  u 

a 

»  o 

-«! 

H  g 

-  K 

o 

H 

d 

■*  5 

o  3 

85 

O 

O 

H^OQ 

s.3 

H 

H 

50 

42 

42 

34 

168 

7 

6 

6 

14 

33 

Mathematics  .... 

14 

14 

14 

14 

56 

Natural  Science .    .     . 

9 

18 

18 

18 

63 

Total 

80 

80 

80 

80 

320 

This  table  brings  out  other  interesting  facts. 
It  shows    how   closely   allied   are   the    Latin- 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION     215 

scientific  and  modern  language  courses,  and 
how  small  a  part  natural  science  is  to  play  in 
the  revised  scheme,  after  all.  The  one-quarter 
of  the  whole  school  time  that  the  scientific 
conferences  asked  to  have  given  to  natural 
science  is  not  so  given  in  any  of  the  pro- 
grammes, though  it  is  closely  approached  in 
three  of  them. 

Although  the  report  itself  contains  no  refer- 
ence to  European  experience  or  practice,  it 
will  be  interesting  to  compare  the  committee's 
recommendations  with  the  programmes  of  Eu- 
ropean secondary  schools.  Take,  for  example, 
the  Prussian  gymnasium,  the  tertia  and  se- 
cunda  of  which  nearly  correspond  to  the 
American  secondary  school  years,  and  the 
French  lycee,  where  the  classes  known  as 
cinquidme,  quatrieme,  troisieme,  and  seconde 
are  in  about  the  same  relation.  The  division 
of  time  in  these  institutions  is  shown  on  the 
following  page. 


216     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 


PRUSSIAN  GYMNASIUM 


OS 

9 
S 

i 

I 

| 

A 

B 

SO 

H 

o 

Subjects 

B 

■ 
I 

1 
en 

o 

1 

6 

1 

■ 

■ 

OS 

1 

I 

o 

p 

o 

P 

o 

H 

2 

2 

2 

2 

8 

2 

2 

3 

3 

10 

7 

7 

7 

6 

27 

6 

6 

6 

6 

24 

3 

3 

3 

2 

11 

History  and  Geography   . 

3 

3 

3 

3 

12 

3 

3 

4 

4 

14 

Natural  History,  Physics, 

and  Chemistry    .     .     . 

2 

2 

2 

2 

8 

28 

28 

30 

28 

114 

FRENCH  LYCfiE 


Subjects 

■ 
a 
'S3 

■ 

1 

1 

■ 

A 

1 

i 

l 

8 

s 

o 

c 

H 

33 

H 

3 

2 

2 

3 

10 

8 

5 

5 

5 

23 

21 

6 

5 

5 

18 

Other  Living  Language    . 

H 

1* 

1* 

2* 

7 

H 

1* 

1* 

1* 

6 

1 

1 

1 

1 

4 

Mathematics       \ 
Natural  Science  j    '     ' 

I*2 

1* 

3 

I* 

7* 

18* 

18* 

19 

19* 

75* 

1  Greek  is  not  begun  until  the  second  half  of  the  year. 
Previous  to  that  time  ten  hours  weekly  are  given  to  Latin. 

2  This  time  is  divided  between  observation  lessons  on  rocks 
and  plants  and  arithmetic. 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION     217 

It  is  seen  at  once  that  the  German  boy  is 
called  upon  for  far  more  work,  measured  in 
terms  of  time,  than  the  American  boy  ;  though 
the  difference  is  not  so  great  as  it  seems,  for 
"learning  lessons"  out  of  school  is  not  so 
prominent  a  feature  in  German  as  it  is  in 
American  education.  The  French  boy,  under 
the  existing  revised  programme,  does  about 
what  is  to  be  expected  of  the  American,  but 
his  time  is  differently  distributed.  The  French 
device  for  preventing  "  scrappy "  courses  from 
becoming  intolerable  is  to  assign  them  few 
but  long  periods.  For  example,  history,  in 
the  lycee,  is  taught  but  once  a  week,  but 
then  it  occupies  an  hour  and  a  half  consecu- 
tively, so  that  much  more  is  accomplished  than 
in  two  periods  of  forty -five  minutes  each.  As 
a  rule,  the  recitation  or  lesson  periods  in  France 
are  considerably  longer  than  those  that  are  usual 
elsewhere. 

In  spite  of  the  differences  between  them, 
however,  it  is  clear  that  the  proposed  Ameri- 
can classical  programme  is  not  very  unlike 
those  in  vogue  on  the  continent  of  Europe. 
Were  the  comparison  extended  to  the  other  pro- 


218     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

grammes,  —  the  Latin-scientific,  the  modern 
language,  and  the  English,  —  a  similar  relation 
to  the  French  and  German  programmes  of  like 
character  would  be  found  to  exist.  The  higher 
classes  of  the  gymnasium  and  the  lycee  have 
still  a  great  advantage  over  the  American 
secondary  school  in  the  fact  that  the  work 
leading  up  to  them  is  carefully  organized  and 
developed,  and  may  be  depended  upon.  The 
American  grammar  school,  or  better,  the  upper 
grades  of  the  elementary  school,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  only  here  and  there  efficient.  For 
two  generations  the  so-called  grammar  school 
has  conspired  with  the  lower  or  primary  grades 
to  retard  the  intellectual  progress  of  the  pupil 
in  the  interest  of  "  thoroughness."  The  arith- 
metic of  many  puzzles,  the  formal  grammar, 
and  the  spelling-book  with  its  long  lists  of 
child-frightening  words  have  been  its  weapons. 
Slowly  and  with  a  struggle  these  are  being 
wrested  from  it.  New  knowledge  is  being 
introduced  to  illustrate  and  illuminate  the  old, 
and  higher  processes  to  explain  and  make 
easier  the  lower.  All  this  promotes  true  thor- 
oughness; and  also  allows  the  child's  mind  to 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION    219 

grow  and  develop  as  nature  intended  it  should, 
and  as  it  often  does  in  spite  of  the  elemen- 
tary school,  not  because  of  it.  Every  year, 
therefore,  pupils  are  reaching  the  high  school 
better  prepared  for  its  peculiar  work  ;  and  it 
is  not  unreasonable  to  hope  that  in  ten  years 
the  secondary  school  may  assume,  in  the  case 
of  its  youngest  pupils,  an  ability  to  use  simple 
English  correctly,  a  knowledge  of  the  elements 
of  algebra  and  geometry,  and  of  some  epoch 
or  movement  in  history.  Perhaps  even  the 
study  of  a  foreign  language  will  have  been 
begun. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  elementary 
school,  therefore,  the  Committee  of  Ten  is 
not  unreasonable  in  its  ideal,  nor  have  the 
conferences  proposed  anything  that  is  imprac- 
ticable. The  same  is  true  when  the  report 
is  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  the  colleges, 
though  here,  too,  reform  and  improvement  are 
necessary.  As  is  well  known,  college  admis- 
sion examinations  not  only  differ  widely  among 
themselves,  but  vary  from  year  to  year.  Per- 
haps no  one  of  them  is  too  high  to  admit  of  a 
well-taught  boy  entering  college  at  seventeen, 


220     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

but  many  are  so  low  that  the  same  boy  ought 
to  pass  them  successfull}7-  at  fourteen,  or  even 
earlier.  The  colleges  have  been  injuring  higher 
education  in  America  by  giving  their  own  idio- 
syncrasies as  to  admission  examinations  free 
scope,  instead  of  agreeing  together  upon  a 
policy. 

I  do  not  mean  that  the  admission  examina- 
tions of  all  colleges  should  be  uniform  ;  that 
is  not  necessary.  But,  to  quote  from  the  re- 
port, "  it  is  obviously  desirable  that  the  col- 
leges and  scientific  schools  should  be  accessible 
to  all  boys  or  girls  who  have  completed  cred- 
itably the  secondary  school  course."  If  the 
recommendations  of  the  Committee  of  Ten  are 
carried  out,  —  and  there  is  every  reason  to 
hope  that  they  will  be,  —  the  "completion  of 
a  secondary  school  course "  will  have  a  defi- 
nite meaning,  and  the  colleges  can  deal  with 
it  accordingly.  The  graduate  of  a  secondary 
school  will  have  had  four  years  of  strong  and 
effective  mental  training,  no  matter  which  of 
the  four  school  programmes  he  has  followed, 
and  the  college  can  safely  admit  him  to  its 
courses.      This   single   step   will   bring   about 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION     221 

the  articulation  of  the  colleges  and  scientific 
schools,  on  the  one  hand,  with  the  secondary 
schools,  on  the  other,  —  an  articulation  that 
has  long  been  recognized  as  desirable  for  both 
classes  of  institutions  and  for  the  country. 

The  question  will  naturally  arise,  —  it  arose 
in  the  minds  of  the  Committee  of  Ten,  —  Can 
the  improvements  suggested  be  effectually  car- 
ried out  without  a  very  considerable  improve- 
ment in  the  training  of  the  teachers  who  are  to 
do  the  work  ?  To  this  question  but  one  answer 
can  be  given,  and  that  in  the  negative.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  opportunities  now  available 
for  the  higher  training  of  secondary  school- 
teachers are  many  times  as  numerous  and  as 
valuable  as  they  were  a  decade  ago.  It  is 
true  that  the  hundreds  of  normal  schools  are 
accomplishing  very  little  in  this  direction,  even 
the  best  of  them  ;  but  the  colleges  and  uni- 
versities, where  the  mass  of  secondary  teachers 
will  always  be  educated  and  trained,  have 
now  awakened  to  a  sense  of  the  responsibil- 
ity that  rests  upon  them.  Harvard  and  Yale, 
Columbia  and  Cornell,  Michigan  and  Illinois, 
Colorado  and  Stanford,  and  many  others  have 


£22     REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

organized  special  departments  for  the  study 
of  education,  and  one  or  two  of  them  are 
manned  and  equipped  more  thoroughly  than 
any  similar  departments  in  Europe.  The  effect 
of  this  great  expansion  of  activity  in  the  study 
of  education  cannot  fail  to  be  widely  felt 
within  the  next  few  years.  The  colleges  have 
needed,  and  some  of  them  still  need,  an  en- 
largement of  sympathies,  as  do  the  normal 
schools.  The  colleges  have  focused  their  at- 
tention and  energy  too  largely  upon  their  own 
special  work,  and  have  paid  no  heed  to  what 
was  going  on  about  and  beneath  them.  The 
normal  schools  have  thought  it  sufficient  to 
study  more  or  less  psychology,  and  to  expound 
more  or  less  dubious  "methods"  of  teaching, 
and  have  neglected  the  larger  field  of  genuine 
culture  and  the  relative  values  of  studies. 
Better  apparatus  and  more  teachers  will  not 
of  themselves  lift  the  college  or  the  normal 
school  out  of  its  rut.  Only  a  full  appreciation 
of  the  relations  of  these  institutions  to  the 
work  of  education  as  a  whole  can  do  that. 

Finally,    what    is    the    effect  of    this    pro- 
longed  and   earnest   investigation    upon    that 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION     223 

ideal  of  a  liberal  education  that  has  so  long 
been  held  in  esteem  among  us  ?  It  will  not 
have  escaped  notice  that  only  one  of  the  com- 
mittee's four  programmes  makes  a  place  for  the 
study  of  Greek,  while  one  excludes  both  Greek 
and  Latin.  It  is  true  that  these  are  recom- 
mended as  ideal  arrangements,  and  that  it  is 
expressly  stated  in  the  report  to  be  the  unani- 
mous opinion  of  the  committee  that,  "under 
existing  conditions  in  the  United  States  as  to 
the  training  of  teachers  and  the  provision  of 
necessary  means  of  instruction,  the  two  pro- 
grammes called  respectively  modern  languages 
and  English  must,  in  practice,  be  distinctly 
inferior  to  the  other  two."  Nevertheless,  it 
seems  clear  that  the  committee  has  been  able  to 
disentangle  the  real  from  the  accidental  in  our 
conception  of  a  liberal  education,  and  has  put 
the  former  forward  in  all  its  strength.  It  has 
not  forgotten  the  precept  of  Aristotle,  that 
"  there  are  branches  of  learning  and  education 
which  we  must  study  with  a  view  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  leisure,"  and  that  "these  are  to  be 
valued  for  their  own  sake."  "It  is  evident, 
then,"  the  philosopher  continues,  "that  there 


224      REFORM  OF   SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

is  a  sort  of  education  in  which  parents  should 
train  their  sons,  not  as  being  useful  or  neces- 
sary, but  because  it  is  liberal  and  noble. 
Whether  this  is  of  one  kind  only,  or  of  more 
than  one,  and  if  so,  what  they  are  and  how  they 
are  to  be  imparted,  must  hereafter  be  deter- 
mined." It  is  just  this  determination  that  the 
committee  has  made  ;  and  it  is  a  determination 
that  each  age,  perhaps  each  generation,  must 
make  for  itself.  Between  a  diminution  of  the 
time  given  to  classical  study  and  a  relapse  into 
quasi-barbarism  there  is  no  necessary  relation 
of  cause  and  effect.  May  not  the  American 
say,  as  did  Paulsen  of  his  countrymen,  that 
"idealism  generally,  if  we  will  use  this  word 
of  so  many  meanings,  is  a  thing  which  is  not 
implanted  from  without,  but  grows  from 
within,  and  that,  in  particular,  the  idealism  in 
the  character  of  the  German  people  has  deeper 
roots  than  the  Greek  and  Latin  lessons  of  our 
gymnasia  "  ?  Is  it  not  true  that  the  other  ele- 
ments of  culture  must  be  given  their  proper 
place  in  secondary  education,  and  that  gain 
rather  than  loss  will  follow  from  so  doing  ? 
Lowell's  hope,    expressed  so    eloquently   at 


REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION     225 

the  Harvard  Anniversary,  will  not  be  disap- 
pointed by  the  recognition  of  a  broader  basis 
for  human  culture.  Every  one  may  accept  the 
recommendations  of  the  Committee  of  Ten,  and 
still  say  with  him  :  "  I  hope  the  day  may  never 
come  when  the  weightier  matters  of  a  language, 
namely,  such  parts  of  its  literature  as  have 
overcome  death  by  reason  of  their  wisdom  and 
the  beauty  in  which  it  is  incarnated,  such  parts 
as  are  universal  by  reason  of  their  civilizing 
properties,  their  power  to  elevate  and  fortify 
the  mind,  —  I  hope  the  day  may  never  come 
when  these  are  not  predominant  in  the  teach- 
ing given  here.  Let  the  Humanities  be  main- 
tained undiminished  in  their  ancient  right. 
Leave  in  the  traditional  preeminence  those  arts 
that  were  rightly  called  liberal ;  those  studies 
that  kindle  the  imagination,  and  through  it 
irradiate  the  reason ;  those  studies  that  manu- 
mitted the  modern  mind ;  those  in  which  the 
brains  of  finest  temper  have  found  alike  their 
stimulus  and  their  repose,  taught  by  them  that 
the  power  of  intellect  is  heightened  in  propor- 
tion as  it  is  made  gracious  by  measure  and  sym- 
metry. Give  us  science,  too,  but  give  first  of 
q 


226    REFORM  OF  SECONDARY  EDUCATION 

all,  and  last  of  all,  the  science  that  ennobles 
life  and  makes  it  generous.  .  .  .  Many-sided- 
ness of  culture  makes  our  vision  clearer  and 
keener  in  particulars.  For  after  all,  the 
noblest  definition  of  Science  is  that  breadth 
and  impartiality  of  view  which  liberates  the 
mind  from  specialties,  and  enables  it  to  organ- 
ize whatever  we  learn,  so  that  it  becomes  real 
Knowledge  by  being  brought  into  true  and 
helpful  relation  with  the  rest." 


INDEX 


Adams,  President  Charles  Ken- 
dall, 167. 

Aim  of  education  in  a  democ- 
racy, 112. 

American  and  German  organi- 
zation of  higher  education 
compared,  135. 

Amiel,  40. 

Apperception,  doctrine  of,  82. 

Aquiuas,  Thomas,  39,  50. 

Aristotle,  42,  72,  73,  109. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  53;  his  defi- 
nition of  culture,  53 ;  on  sec- 
ondary schools,  151. 

Art  in  education,  22. 

Atomic  individualism,  25. 

Augustine,  50. 

Azarias,  Brother,  52. 

Bagehot,  105. 
Beethoven,  51. 
Bentham,  70. 
Berkeley,  43. 
Bonnet,  65. 
Bopp,  47. 
Browning,  65. 
Bruno,  42. 
Bryce,  James,  105. 
Burgers tein,  75. 
Burke,  106. 

Carlyle,  105. 
Cayley,  45. 
Champollion,  46. 


Chicago  University,  135. 

Cicero,  174. 

Civil  Service  Reform,  116. 

Collectivism,  stagnation  the 
result  of,  26. 

College,  the  American,  89,  130 ; 
distinguished  from  univer- 
sity, 125;  aim  of,  131;  ad- 
mission examinations,  88, 
221. 

Columbia  University,  135, 221. 

Committee  of  Ten,  189;  mem- 
bership of,  191;  procedure 
of,  192:  conclusions  of,  203; 
criticism  of,  212. 

Comte,  44. 

Condillac,  65. 

Coordination  of  studies,  202. 

Culture,  five  aspects  of,  17; 
definition  of,  33. 

Dante,  38,  48. 
Darwin,  71, 102,  182. 
da  Vinci,  Leonardo,  51. 
Democracy,  progress  of,  103; 

literature  of,  105 ;  relation  of 

education   to,  108;    dangers 

of,  119. 
Demosthenes,  174. 
Descartes,  15,  43,  45. 
de  Tocqueville,  105. 
Drawing      and      constructive 

work,  178. 
du  Bois-Reymond,  145. 


227 


228 


INDEX 


Economics,  importance  of,  in 
education,  91. 

Education,  definition  of,  17; 
basis  of,  in  evolution,  6;  as 
adjustment  to  environment, 
15 ;  not  identical  with  in- 
struction, 16;  scientific  study 
of,  71;  threefold  approach 
to,  71;  departments  of,  in 
colleges  and  universities, 
221. 

Educational  values,  standards 
of,  50. 

Einheitsschule,  162,  163. 

Elementary  education,  scope 
of,  152. 

Eliot,  President,  157, 188. 

Emerson,  64. 

Energy  and  will,  43. 

English,  study  of,  164, 198. 

Erasmus,  53,  54. 

Ethics  and  politics,  109. 

Evolution,  doctrine  of,  4,  14; 
and  education,  6,  70. 

"  Experience,"  danger  of,  in 
education,  77. 

Family,  origin  of  the,  11. 

Fichte,  42. 

Fiske,  John,  5,  10, 13,  38. 

Freedom  of  the  will,  64. 

Froehel,  55. 

Froude,  58. 

Galileo,  39. 
Galle,  44. 
Gauss,  45. 

Geography,  study  of,  168. 
Gladstone,  71. 
Goethe,  33,  48,  177. 
Greek,  study  of,  172. 
Grimm,  47,  93. 

Gymnasium,  table  of  studies 
in.  216. 


Hall,  Dr.  G.  Stanley,  138. 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,  50;  on 
the  study  of  mathematics, 
170. 

Harris,  Dr.  W.  T.,  86. 

Hartwell,  Dr.  E.  M.,  on  physi- 
cal training  and  play,  181. 

Harvard  University,  135,  139, 
141, 155. 

Hawthorne,  65. 

Hegel,  41,  43. 

Helmholtz,  102. 

Herbart,  81,  202. 

Herder,  33. 

Herschel,  102. 

History,  study  of,  168. 

Hofmann,  145. 

Homer,  48. 

Horace,  174. 

Humanism,  53. 

Humanitas,  20,  33. 

Humanities,  the,  20. 

Huxley,  102,  183. 

Individualism,  evils  of  extreme, 
25. 

Infancy,  meaning  of,  6 ;  in  man, 
9,  12. 

Institutional  element  in  educa- 
tion, the,  25. 

Interest,  doctrine  of,  84. 

Jansen,  39. 

Johns  Hopkins  University,  135, 
139, 141,  144. 

Kant,  41,43. 
Kempis,  Thomas  a,  51. 
Kidd's  Social  Evolution,  101. 

Lamarck,  42. 
Latin,  study  of,  172. 
Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  105. 
Leibniz,  43,  45,  71,  88. 
Liberal  education,  91,  222. 


INDEX 


229 


Literature  in  education,  19,  55. 

Lobachevsky, 45. 

Locke,  64. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  224. 

Lyce'e,  table  of  studies  in,  216. 

Lyell,  102. 

Maine,  Sir  Henry,  105. 

Man,  place  of,  iu  the  universe, 

38. 
Mandeville,  70. 

Manual  training,  153,  162,  179. 
Mathematics,  study  of,  170. 
Michael  Angelo,  48. 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  103, 183. 
Milton,  47,  56. 
Modern  European   languages, 

study  of,  177. 
Montaigne,  39. 
Mosso,  75. 
Mozart,  51. 
Miiller,  102. 

National  Educational  Associa- 
tion, 116, 189, 190. 
Natural  science,  study  of,  172. 
Newton,  45. 
Nordau,  40. 

wai&eia,  33. 

Parker,  Colonel  Francis  W.,  84. 

Pater,  54. 

Paulsen,  Professor   Friedrich, 

91,  137,  144, 165,  224. 
Petrarch,  53. 
Phidias,  48. 
Philosophical  faculty  the  centre 

of  the  university.  144. 
Physical  training  in  education, 

180 ;  distinguished  from  play, 

181. 
Physical  conditions  of   sound 

education,  74. 
Plato,  16,  42,  43,  50,  109,  174. 


Play  in  education,  73;  rtistin- 
guished  from  physical  train- 
ing, 181. 

Politics,  participation  of  edu- 
cated persons  in,  109. 

Psychology,  relation  of,  to  edu- 
cation, 76. 

Raphael,  48,  51. 

Rayleigh,  Lord,  45. 

Rein,  202. 

Religious  element  in  education, 
28. 

Research  in  American  universi- 
ties, 138. 

Riemann,  45. 

Roentgen,  102. 

Rollin,  183. 

Rousseau,  25,  28,  50,  73. 

Royce,  Professor  Josiah,  80. 

Schelling,  55. 

Scherer,  105. 

Schopenhauer,  40. 

Science  in  education,  18, 56, 172. 

Secondary  education,  151; 
scope  of,  153;  poor  teaching 
in,  159;  complete  in  itself, 
154,  207 ;  in  the  United  States 
and  in  Europe  compared,  156 ; 
selective  function  of,  160; 
suggested  course  of  study 
for,  162 ;  the  pivot  of  educa- 
tional reform,  187 ;  Commit- 
tee of  Ten's  proposals  for,  203. 

Self-activity,  6,  42,  46,  47. 

Shakspere,  47,  48,  51. 

Sociological  aspect  of  educa- 
tion, 86. 

Socrates,  25,  70. 

Sophists,  the,  25. 

Sophocles,  174. 

Specialization,  dangers  of  ex- 
cessive, 146. 


230 


INDEX 


Spencer,  Herbert,  41,  42,  50. 

Spinoza,  42. 

Spoils  system  of  treating  public 

offices,  116. 
Standards,  low,  of  professional 

and  technical  schools,  142. 
State,    the    democratic,    110; 

duty      of      the      individual 

toward,  111. 
Sturm,  53. 
Stoy,  202. 
Superior   education,  scope  of, 

152. 
Sylvester,  45. 

Tacitus,  130, 174. 

Teaching  in  American  universi- 
ties, 138. 

Technical  schools,  influence  of, 
on  secondary  education,  161. 

Ten,  Committee  of,  189 ;  mem- 
bership of,  191 ;  procedure  of, 
192;  conclusions  of,  203; 
criticism  of,  212. 


Thought,  primacy  of,  43,  47. 
Tyndall,  61. 

University,  definition  of,  130; 

no  common  type  of,  127. 
Urbanitas,  33. 
Utility  in  education,  60. 

Vacation,  length  of,  157. 
Verner,  47,  93. 
von  Baer,  42,  102. 
von  Hoist,  Professor,  on  Ameri- 
can universities,  127. 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russell,  5. 
Warner,  Dr.  Francis,  75. 
Whewell,  50, 

Will,  modern  view  of,  43 ;  free- 
dom of,  64. 
Wundt,  49. 

Ziller,  202. 


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